May Flowers
by BCPowerhouse
Summary: When I read "The Zerg Swarm" by Eastbridge, I wondered what it would be like if a similar situation played out on modern day Earth. This story is the result of that idea. A young girl named May discovers that she is different than most. Her discovery sets in motion a series of events that bring about May's global adventure. ON HIATUS, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN. 11/12/18
1. Chapter 1

Lauren woke suddenly to the sound of the terrified scream of her and her husband's six year old adopted daughter May. Beside her, her husband, Clark, shot up to a sitting position having also been woken by their daughter. He was a tall man, approaching six and a half feet, and was built like a mountain. His eyes were never the same color for more than a week; one day they would be brown, and the next day they would be almost orange or green. He had short brown hair that was so dark that it appeared black at first glance. He also had a very childlike face, or he would have if he shaved his equally dark beard like his wife, nearly every day, jokingly asked him to. However, Clark took great pride in his beard and was very nurturing of it. When she would poke fun about it, he would always say "growing a beard is a manly practice that has been so looked down upon by society that men have forgotten how to be men. If you did not want me to have a beard, you should have married a girly man or a woman." He wore his beard proudly even before they met, so her repeated attempts to convince him to shave it were motivated more by curiosity over what he would look like without his beard than a dislike for it. In fact, if he were to shave his beard, she was not entirely sure that she could sleep with him. It would be like sleeping with another man entirely.

But her husband's facial hair was the least of Lauren's worries as she and Clark leapt out of bed and dashed into May's room adjacent to theirs. Dashing in, they saw a lump protruding underneath the covers of May's bed. Clark pulled the covers away gently to find their weeping daughter curled up in the fetal position with a bony set of membrane-less bat-like wings protruding from her back. Both he and Lauren took a step back in surprise. They stood in shock for a moment before Clark, noticing that the wings moved in synch with May's movements, stepped up to comfort his daughter while carefully avoiding touching her wings. It was not long before her wails of fear were replaced by quiet crying. As she wept, Lauren took time to look more closely at the wings. At first she was simply shocked by their existence, but after looking closely, she was dumbfounded to find that they were attached to her back as though they had been there her whole life. There were two holes in the shirt where the base of the wings were. They sprouted from the bottom of her shoulder blades, and were much darker than May's skin. In fact, they were a shade of grey dark enough to be mistaken for black. Part of the wings, however, were almost neon green; the part she later Googled and found out to be essentially a thumb, but on a bat wing. The "thumb" jutted out of the dark grey "skin." The "thumb" appeared to be pointy, sharp even. Upon closer inspection, Lauren noticed that all of the "fingers" had similar pointed claws at the ends. Looking at May's bed, she realized that there were many holes and tears in the sheets. Those claws were as sharp as they looked.

"Is it gone?" She asked with a shaky voice barely above a whisper. Although her tears had stopped, her eyes were still glued shut.

"Is what gone darlin'?" He asked, hoping against hope that she was not referring to the wings on her back.

"That thing on my back." She said with the same uneven voice as before, although now it held the slightest hint of hope.

At this, Clark looked up pleadingly at his obviously concerned wife who was now sitting on the other side of their daughter. She looked back at him with concern and uncertainty in her large brown eyes. When she had her glasses on, here large eyes appeared larger, giving her an almost anime appearance. She was slightly shorter than most women at five-foot three-inches tall. Her jaw was pointed and her hair was an ashy light brown color. Because her hairline grew in a widow's peak, her face was heart shaped. Having a widow's peak was something that she complained about often when trying to find a new hair style, as many hairstyles looked different on someone with a widow's peak. While she was in high-school, she tried to pluck the hairs out, but, to her dismay, they grew back. She had a degenerative brain disease that caused her toHowever, Clark was not concerned about his wife's hair at the moment. He wanted to help his daughter. They both looked back to May, however Lauren was the first to speak.

"Sweetie, we are going to see uncle Matt today. Doesn't that sound fun?" Clark's brother, Matthew, was a chiropractor who ran his own business called Spine Care. They would have taken May to the hospital, but they were already struggling financially due to the economy. If there was a problem that could be fixed without paying for a hospital visit, doctor, or medication, they would fix it at home.

"Is it gone?" She asked again, this time the hope in her voice was replaced with panic.

This time Clark spoke up, but not before he sighed heavily. "Let's get you up and ready to go okay?"

After several minutes of comforting and convincing, they managed to get her out of bed with a nervous "Okay." Even though she knew the answer to her question, she felt safe enough with her parents there. They would not let anything happen to her. With enough of her fear gone, she got out of bed. She was just a few short inches shorter than her adoptive mother, and would likely be taller soon. She had light brown hair that reached just below her shoulders, and hazel eyes with large black limbal rings around her irises. Her low cheek bones and widow's beak gave her face a heart shape like that of her mother.

As Lauren got May dressed, Clark stepped out to call his older brother. He explained as much about the situation he could without sounding like he had gone mad, only saying that his daughter had a major back problem that needed to be looked at immediately. They agreed to meet at Spine Care so that they could use Matt's X-Ray machine.

When he returned, May was dressed. Lauren had cut holes in the back of an old shirt to accommodate May's new wings.

"Are y'all ready?" He asked.

"I guess so." Lauren replied with uncertainty.

The family of three stepped out into the night, loaded up into the car with great difficulty, which resulted in several new holes in the seats, and began the usually ten minute drive to spine care. They made it in five.


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay guys, so I was planning on finishing the entire story before releasing another chapter, but I was writing this on my phone. My phone broke, and now I only have what I had backed up. I lost a lot of the story, and I will take a break from writing it. Meanwhile, I will be posting what I have written. What I have written is not entirely finished, and there are some plot holes that I plan on working out before posting the chapter that contains the hole. After I finish posting what I have, I will begin writing again, but I will post as I write.**

Matt awoke to the loud ringing of his cellphone. Annoyed and groggy, he sat up and answered it when he saw that his brother was calling.

"Hello?"

...

"Okay."

...

"Yeah, I will be right there."

With that, he hung up and began to dress quickly.

"What's going on honey?" His wife asked half asleep.

"Clark called and said that something is wrong with May...he didn't explain what was going on. He just said that they needed help. We are going to meet at Spine Care. Hopefully I will be right back." He then kissed his wife and headed for the door.

He had bought the house next door to his several years ago, and moved his business there. So it only took a moment to walk over. When got there, he began getting everything ready.

A few minutes later, he heard the sound of car doors closing outside. He opened the front door to let his brother's household in. He was confused when he noticed that May was walking fine. Most, if not all, major back problems will impede the persons ability to walk or stand up straight. However, as May approached the light, the family's expressions indicated that something was very wrong. As the trio approached, Matt finally saw what that thing was. May's wings, partially hidden by the darkness of night, came to Matt's attention slowly. At first, he thought that he was seeing things, but it became clear that his niece's wings were very real. Matt said nothing as they came inside.

Once everyone was inside, Matt led them to the room that held the X-Ray machine, and motioned for May to stand on a platform as he took several X-Rays. When he finished, he placed two images on the light board hanging on the wall. One image of May, the other of someone else.

"These are May's shoulder blades," Matt stated as he pointed to the X-Ray, "and these are someone else's. May's shoulder blades have...there is a..." He sighed heavily. "Arms work with a ball and socket system. This is the same system on May's wi...wings. However, there is a bit more support for May's wings than for her arms." He rubbed his forehead and sighed again. "How long?"

"We found out less than an hour ago." Clark said.

"Who else knows?"

"Just us." Lauren answered this time.

May began tapping Clark on the shoulder. "Daddy."

Clark spoke, barely noticing his daughter. "What do you think?"

May, still tapping, spoke up again. "Hey, daddy."

"I think that I am going to wake up next to my wife in a few moments." Matt answered with a humorless laugh.

May nagged a third time. "Daddy, look."

"Yes darlin'?" He said looking to his smiling daughter. "What is it?"

"They're gone." She said as she turned around.

Now May held everyone's attention as Matt's head snapped up. She was not joking either. Not only were the wings gone, there was no trace of them other than the holes in her shirt.

"How did you do that?" Matt asked.

"I don't know...I just...did it." May answered as she turned back around. "See?" Her wings then came out and unfurled in the blink of an eye. To Matt's dismay, as the wings came out, the tip of May's right wing struck the wall and left a foot long gash in the drywall.

In response to the damage, Lauren spoke up. "Honey, I think that you should put your wings back when we are inside." Then she turned to Clark, "I am going to take May to the waiting room."

"Okay."

Once Lauren left with May, Clark spoke up.

"I can pay for the wall."

"Don't worry about it. When I wake up tomorrow, it will be the only thing that will convince me that this night isn't a dream."


	3. Chapter 3

**Here is another chapter! This one is very different than I had originally written, and is also much longer. I hope you guys like it!**

* * *

The family of three did not make further attempts to find out what caused May to have her wings. There were several reasons for their decision. May had quickly decided that she liked her wings, they could not afford to see a specialist, and if people found out, then they might view May as a freak. Of course, Clark and Lauren never mentioned the last reason to May.

May gained new traits over the years following her first transformation. Her eyesight and hearing had improved, and she suspected that her well above average intelligence was connected to her unnatural wings. Among the more difficult to conceal traits that she had acquired was a massive appetite. Once she got her wings, her appetite doubled. It was not much of a problem, except for the funny looks she received during lunch at her school's cafeteria, and most people simply became used to seeing her eat as much as any of the boys on the school football team.

Once, while she was in tenth grade, a particularly large twelfth grade defensive lineman challenged her to an eating contest when he heard about her eating habits. She accepted. She had never actually been full that she could remember; since she got her wings, she would eat until she was no longer hungry. It was not a surprise to her when she easily won the eating competition, but everyone else thought that it was amazing, especially since she was rather slender. The linebacker had become too full to stand up straight, but May was perfectly fine. As she expected, she still was not full.

May had few friends in High School. In an effort to keep her wings a secret, she did not reach out much, and preferred to keep to herself. She spent much of her free time doing something that few her age would consider fun. Reading.

She did not read fiction or "entertaining" books. Instead she read books such as The Prince by Machiavelli, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and Frederick the Great's Instruction to His Generals.

Politics, war, and the way people behave. That is what interested May.

May had no boyfriend during High School, and had no desire for close companionship, male or female.

After graduating high school, May moved halfway across the country to Pennsylvania and began attending Swarthmore College.

She had requested to have a room to herself, and at first she thought that her request had been granted. She had just finished unpacking her duffel-bag, and all of her books had been put onto a bookshelf.

Her dorm room had one bedroom, one common room that led to the hallway outside, and one bathroom connected to the bedroom. Her bedroom had two beds, one on each side of the room, and May had just laid down to read a book when her door opened.

May got up to see who had just intruded on her room, and as she reached the doorway connecting the common room with the bedroom, someone came into the dorm through the door.

The girl was roughly the same age as May with long black hair. The girl was petite, but not scrawny, and she was wearing blue jeans and a navy t-shirt that said "Even duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can muffle the sound."

The girl was carrying a bag over her shoulder and pulling a suitcase behind her.

"Hi." The girl said with a big smile and a quick wave.

"Hi." May said awkwardly.

The two stood there for several moments while avoiding eye contact and waiting for the other to say something.

"Is this the bedroom?" she asked quickly while gesturing to the room behind May.

"Oh, yeah." May said as she stepped back through the door to the bedroom and made way for the girl carrying the luggage. "You can just...put your stuff in here...if you want."

The girl nodded as she passed by May, and she put her bags on the empty bed. After that, the girl turned to face May.

"So..." the girl said slowly. "Oh. I'm April." The girl said with another big smile as she offered her hand to shake.

"May."

"Nice to meet you." April said.

"You too."

The awkward silence returned, but was quickly broken by April. "I am going to unpack." April said as she turned to her suitcase and bag.

"Okay."

As April unpacked, May went to her bed to start reading.

"What are you reading?" April asked as she unpacked.

May chuckled a little. "Do you want to hear the full title?"

April turned toward May and raised an eyebrow. "I guess so."

"Leviathan or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiastical and Civil by Thomas Hobbes."

"I have no idea what you just said." April replied.

"It is a book about political philosophy."

"What is it about?" April asked, even though May had just answered that question.

"Thomas Hobbes, who wrote the book, naively thought that the problem of government should be approached from a mathematical mindset. He wanted to study politics like someone might study a triangle, by looking at it, measuring it, and figuring out its properties. Unfortunately, politics is far to complex to study it that way. Simply put, Hobbes believed that we should study politics by studying the way man is, not the way man should be.

"Beliefs such as Communism approach politics by trying to find out how man should be, and getting man to that point, but Hobbes thought that we should approach politics by finding out how man is, and working around man's flaws instead of trying to change them.

"Niccolo Machiavelli really pioneered this idea in his book The Prince, but Hobbes didn't think that anyone else before him had done a good job at figuring politics out even though this method, so he wrote Leviathan."

April stood unmoving for a moment. "You do know that school hasn't started yet?"

"I just like stuff like this." May said as she held up the book slightly.

"Let me guess. You're a Political Science major."

"Actually, I am a Chemistry major."

"Because you already have a Masters in Political Science?"

"Because I like Chemistry too."

* * *

Seven months passed. May and April became decent friends, and April tried, on many occasions, to persuade May to hang out with her friends. May always had some excuse or another to avoid such close social interaction.

It was an average March Friday at Swarthmore College, and May was having lunch in the cabinesque cafeteria. She had just sat down with her three full plates of food, when April walked up. April was wearing blue jeans and a clever t-shirt, as always. The shirt said "A.A.A.A.A. American Association Against Acronym Abuse."

"Where is everyone else?" April asked as she sat down across from May.

"What do you mean?"

"The other plates. Who are they for?"

"Me." May said, slightly confused.

"Wait, you eat like this all of the time?"

"Yeah. I thought you had figured that out by now." May stated. After living together for so long, she thought that April would have figured that out. May ate with April in the mornings, and she ate just as much then as she did at lunch.

"I thought that you ate that much for breakfast because you skipped lunch!" April said as she realized how much her roommate was eating every day. "How are you not, like, five hundred pounds!?"

"I have no idea, but if I don't eat this much, I'll get hungry pretty quickly."

"I have got to watch you eat all of this." April said with the same weird fascination that most people had upon seeing May eat.

"Suit yourself."

The two sat in silence for several moments as they ate.

"Did your Biology class let out early today or something?" May asked. The two had never eaten lunch together before because of their class schedules.

"No. Professor Davidson had a car wreck on his way here, so we had to skip."

"Is he okay?" May asked.

"I think so. It said that he would be back tomorrow, so it must not have been too bad."

"That's good. You wouldn't want to have to retake a class because of your professor being in the hospital." May said with a chuckle.

"Knowing him, he might come back in a wheelchair with an I.V. in his arm. He really gets into his stuff." The two laughed a little.

April stopped laughing when she noticed that May had a look of discomfort on her face.

"Are you okay?" April asked.

"I don't know. I feel kind of funny."

"What kind of funny?"

"I don't know. I guess I feel a little bloated, and nothing that I am eating is tasting as good as it was earlier." May said.

"Like you ate too much?"

"I can't eat too much." May said with confidence.

"You might want to see a nurse."

"No!" May exclaimed, and a little too quickly to seem normal.

April raised an eyebrow. "Suit yourself, but you should at least lay down or something."

May nodded, got up, grabbed her plates, and made for her dorm.

"Bye. Have a nice day. See you later." April quietly said after May was out of earshot. "Typical."

* * *

Although May made it to all of her classes later that day, she did not feel up to eating dinner, which was extremely odd for her. She went to bed with the same feeling of fullness that she had acquired during lunch, and, despite her discomfort, she fell asleep with ease.

May opened her eyes and quickly noted that she was not in her room. She was laying on grass in the middle of an endless field. Slowly, she stood. Everywhere she could see was covered in an endless field of knee high grass. She turned around in hopes of seeing something other than the endless field. She was not disappointed. Directly behind her had been a large structure about 40 yards tall, the height of an eleven to twelve story building. It was circular around the base, and its diameter was about one and one half times its height. It appeared to be a living organism, and when May saw it, she strangely knew that it was called a Hatchery. It was a knowledge that she had not memorized or figured out, and she had no way to explain how she knew what it was called. She stood marveling at the structure for several moments.

She awoke in her room, and looked at the clock next to her bed. It was seven forty six in the morning. Today was a Saturday, so there was nowhere that she needed to be. She was already wide awake, and knew that trying to sleep would only result in failure, so she got out of bed. May went to the bathroom and closed the door. Once safely out of sight, she began changing. She had made a habit of changing in the bathroom because it was the only place that she could safely extend her wings without risking being seen. After stretching her wings and changing, May headed downstairs to get breakfast.

Over the next couple of months, May had stopped eating as much as she usually did, and she had the same dream about the Hatchery every few nights. At first she ignored it, but then the dream started changing slightly every now and then.

At first, the only change was that the field of perfect grass had a couple of trees around it, but after two and a half weeks, the field looked more like a clearing in a forest with most of the ground in the clearing covered with purple Creep. She did not know how she knew what the Creep was called, but it did not really matter to her. Her main concern was her second semester of college. However, two days before classes were scheduled to end, she had the same dream as before, but this time, she recognized where the dream had taken place. It was well outside of the city limits.

She had been out there to hunt deer once with April and Ronnie Fisher, April's boyfriend. The trip was a disaster; April was bored, May felt a bit like a third wheel, and Ronnie was frustrated that the girls could not keep quiet. They thought that it might be exciting to go hunting, but ended up bored out of their minds.

The Saturday following the day that she recognized where the dream took place, which happened to also be the day after the last day of college for the semester, May got into the car that she had been saving up for for the last several years, and drove to a road near the field that the incredibly boring hunt had taken place. There was a gate leading into the woods past the shoulder of the road; the gate had the word "corps" on it written in large metal letters on the side.

She parked her car on the shoulder and got out to climb over the waist high gate. The lettering on the gate indicated that the land was owned by the Army Corp of Engineers. Most of the people who came to the area were there to hunt deer. May was hunting for something else entirely.

She followed the trail for several minuets before coming across the field the had seen in her dream. However, there was no giant biological building in the center. She had not really expected to find one, but she decided to explore the clearing anyway. After she walked to the other end of the field, she decided that there was not anything noteworthy to do or see, and she felt kind of stupid for looking at all.

She was beginning to get disappointed as she turned to head back to her car, but once she reached the center of the clearing, her body tensed up. Tense and unable to move easily, she tripped and fell to the ground as a pain erupted from her stomach. She gagged and began coughing blood. Then the world went dark.


	4. Chapter 4

May opened her eyes. She was not in the same field that she remembered being in. Slowly she made her way to her feet. She realized that she was in the same endless field of grass as her first dream. She turned around, expecting to see the hatchery as she had before, and was surprised to see nothing but the same endless sea of grass, but there was something that caught her attention; something was moving in the grass. She approached the disturbance, and found a large, pill bug like creature that was the size of a small lap dog. Immediately she knew that it came from the Hatchery and that it was called a Larva. Though she did not understand the greater puropse of Larvae, she couldn't help but like the little buggers.

She smiled, squealed like a little girl, and picked up the Larvae. "Oh my gosh! It's so cute!" She said while holding the squirming Larva at arms length. She noticed another one next to her, held the first one close with one arm, and went to pick it up the new larva.

Before she reached it, it curled up into a ball, and covered itself in a thin film. At the same time, the Larva she was holding squirmed out of her hands and did the same as the other one. May quickly put down the Larvae and watched the two Larvae turn into eggs. Over the next few moments, the egg of the Larva she had been holding grew until it was waist high. At the same time, the other egg grew until it was as big as a Mack truck without a trailer. Though she felt like she had been watching for only a few moments, she knew that the eggs had been growing for at least twelve hours when the small egg hatched.

A Drone stood where the small egg had been. Once again, although May knew the creature's name, she did not understand it's purpose. The Drone was about four feet long, and had eight legs with webbing between them.

About six hours after the Drone hatched, the second larger egg hatched. From it came a massive creature. It was about two and a half times taller than May and almost as wide as it was tall. May knew the moment she saw the creature that it was an Overlord. She stood watching it as it floated high into the air. It had long tentacles that lazily extended downward five yards. May reached out to touch one of the tentacles...

* * *

May awoke to the muffled sound of constant footsteps and a light that made seeing difficult. Unable to decipher where she was, she waited for several moments for her eyes to adjust to the brightness of having her eyes open. Her head was turned to the right, and she saw that to her right was an I.V. leading into her arm, further to the right was her dark grey wing and a lamp stand.

The realization that her wings were out hit her like a ton of bricks, and sent her into a state of panic. How long had they been out? Who had seen her wings? How long had she been unconscious? Where were her parents? Where was she? What happened?

"Good to see you awake." A male voice said to her left.

"May snapped her head to the left and saw that there was a man in a suit seated in the chair against the wall. On either side of him were two men with military equipment on them, M-16, body armor, magazines, drop leg pistol holsters, the whole setup.

"Who are you?" She asked with the quiver of fear in her voice. She was not afraid of the men dressed to kill, but she was afraid of people finding out that she was a freak of nature.

"I am sorry to say that I can't actually tell you my name, but you may call me Matt." The man said. I work for the FBI."

"Okay...Matt, who are you?" May shook her head, realizing she had just asked that. "Why are you here?"

"I am here to ask you a few questions."

"Okay... About what?" May remembered her wings, and immediately felt like scolding herself.

"This." Matt said as he handed her a picture. May took the picture with uncertainty and gasped when she saw it. It was a picture of the Hatchery that she had seen in her dreams.

"My Hatchery." She whispered involuntarily.

"Say again?"

"Um...it's a Hatchery."

"A Hatchery." He said thoughtfully. "What does it...hatch?"

"It makes Larva."

"Where did it come from?"

"The Hatchery?"

"Yes."

"I don't know."

Matt sighed. "What else do you know about it?"

May took a moment to think. "Nothing really. I dreamt about it every night for two weeks. Then, I decided to go to the place that the dreams took place. Once I was there...I guess I passed out. Next thing I know, I am waking up here." She paused for a moment to think. "By the way, how did I get here?"

"That is not my story to tell. When exactly did you start having these dreams?" Matt asked.

"Matt" continued asking questions for what felt like an eternity, and by the time "Matt" was done, May's head was swimming. For the most part, the questions were about her dreams, her eating habits before they returned to normal, and other questions that didn't seem to apply to the situation at all.

"Okay, I think that will do for today." John said as he stood up.

As he was leaving with the two guards, May spoke up. "What do you think is happening?"

"Matt" stopped to turn around. "I have no idea, but both of our lives probably just got turned on their heads."

He began turning back toward the door. "Matt?"

"Yes?"

"Please don't tell anyone about this." May said gesturing to her dark grey and green wings.

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to report everything that happens to my superiors. However, all of this," Matt gestured to May and the picture of the Hatchery, "is very restricted. Don't worry about any of this making its way onto the news." With that, he turned and left with his guards.

Moments later, Lauren and Clark stormed into the room.

* * *

 **I start another semester of college next week. I hope it doesn't affect how often I can post chapters too much. Sorry about another short chapter, but they start getting longer as time goes on. In several chapters, they start to even out at around 2k words.**

 **I am editing this as I post. Checking spelling, capitalization, plot holes, ect... When this story gets to chapter 18, I will have to start writing as I post, so things will really slow down then. I will try to keep up with the rate that I am going now, but it will take a lot more work to do so. Hopefully I will be able to make time.**

 **Thanks for reading! If all goes well, I will have another chapter out by the 22nd. If all goes extremely well, I will have two!**


	5. Chapter 5

The day after waking up, May was released. She felt fine and all of her motor functions were normal. Add to that the fact that the FBI did not want anyone to know about May's...oddities, and the doctors were forced to let May go free.

May had been unconscious for eight days, and ended was glad that her classes had ended before she was admitted to the hospital. Her parents would only be able to stay one more day because of Clark's job. They had booked a flight as soon as they got news of the incident, and Clark only had nine vacation days to use. He had told them about the situation, but his employers, being government contractors, had a very strict way of doing things. Go to work when you are told, and do the work of one person in four hours with a team of three over an eight hour shift.

May wanted to return home with her parents, but the doctors and "Matt" wanted her to stay. The doctors were not sure if it was safe for May to travel by plane, and "Matt" wanted to be able to keep close contact with May.

* * *

Because classes were over for the semester, May could not stay at her dorm room for much longer. All of the students who were not taking Summer classes had been forced moved out while May was in the hospital, but May was given one extra week to recuperate.

April had left a get well letter before she left, and May wished that she had had a chance to say goodbye.

On her first night back at her dorm, May could not sleep. She noticed a presence on the fringe of her consciousness. It was very subtle, and at first May ignored it, pushing it away. However, it gradually began to feel more urgent. After curiosity, and a desire to sleep, got the best of her, May focused on the presence that had been hanging in the back of her mind. She could feel the panic coming from the presence, and she reached out towards it. The panic abated and a memory flashed before her.

She saw the field that she had been in when she went unconscious, but now, it was swarming with people. There were many military men standing guard, and people scurrying around in white lab coats. The people in lab coats were taking samples and running tests. May could feel the Hatchery's fear through the memory. However, the fear did not come from the people around the Hatchery; it came from the absence of a purpose. In this fearful state, the Hatchery had decided that it should secure itself from any possible intruders, and preserve its energy by minimizing Larvae production.

The Hatchery communicated all of this in an instant, and May could feel that the Hatchery was seeking a purpose from her. It was in desperate need of order.

Once May realized that she had just seen a memory of the Hatchery, she tried to communicate with it, but found that it had no conscious thoughts other than a desire to obey. She decided to try to find out what the Hatchery was seeing at this moment, and the Hatchery was all too happy to oblige.

What she saw was almost identical to what she had seen in the memory, but now, the field was lit by many generator powered lights. That was not the only change, for around the Hatchery were several men burning the ground. At first, May could not make sense of it, but she then realized that the men were burning the Creep being produced by the Hatchery.

There was something else that May noticed that was new; she could feel the few Larvae that the Hatchery had so dutifully protected. The Larvae were inside of the Hatchery; within an area which May could also see. Inside of the Hatchery was a large circular room about twenty yards across with five hallways pointing directly away from the center.

These hallways led to the exterior, and were protected by "doors" that were currently closed to prevent the people outside from getting to the defenseless Larvae that aimlessly crawled along the floor of the main room. Along the walls and floor of the Hatchery were glowing bio-luminescent dots about the size of tennis balls. These glowing dots lit the inside enough to see quite well.

May remembered the dream she had before she woke up in the hospital and instinctively focused on one of the Larva, pushing the idea of a Drone onto it. The Larva turned into an egg immediately. May then left the mind of her Hatchery, but did not push its existence out of her mind as she had before. Now, she kept it close enough to know what was happening around the large creature at all times, something that comforted the Hatchery immensely.

None of the people outside of the Hatchery had tried to force their way inside, but it was likely only a matter of time before they did. When May sorted through the Hatchery's memories, she found that the "doors" had been open when the Hatchery was born, and there were at least half a dozen people who saw inside before the "doors" closed.

The next day, "Matt" came by to visit at precisely 10:00 A.M. He asked questions and claimed to be able to answer any questions May had, but most of the questions that she asked were answered in the same way: "classified."

He would not tell her who all knew about her wings, but when asked about the Hatchery, he told May that it was being studied, a fact that she had found out on her own, and that it could not be moved. She asked if she would be allowed to see the Hatchery, but "Matt" said that the Hatchery could be dangerous. None of the scientists had a clue as to what the Hatchery was for or what it could do, and the few that were allowed to visit the creature were extremely knowledgeable.

Eventually, "Matt" explained that it would be his job to check in on her every week, and he claimed that this would continue indefinitely. After they were done with all of the official business, "Matt" stuck around and the two talked until he had to leave at 12:00.

May spent the rest of the day with her books, and watched over her Hatchery as the day went on. While she was reading, the Drone hatched. She found that she could enter its mind as easily as she could enter the Hatchery's, but, to her dismay, she found the Drone's mind to be even more submissive than that of the Hatchery. She told the Drone to walk around, stop, and jump, but the third was physically impossible for it. It was a strange situation, for the amount of shame the Drone felt when it failed to jump made May feel bad for telling it to do so.

For the rest of the day, May was left alone with her books. She had a hard time paying attention, however, due to the words that "Matt" had said the day before: "Both of our lives probably just got turned on their heads." May fell into a restless sleep that night as she feared the uncertainty of her future and that of her Hatchery.

* * *

 _Again, May was in a field of endless grass. Again, she saw a creature. A Drone._

 _When May spotted the Drone, it began walking away from her._

 _May followed the Drone, and when it stopped it curled up as much as possible, and a film covered the entirety of the Drone. The Drone began to morph within the film as the film grew thicker and became filled with a puss-like liquid. Although it looked like no time passed at all, May could tell that nearly a day gone by as the bulbous, film covered creature finished growing. When it was done growing, the new bio-structure broke free of the film causing a large ammount of the puss-like liquid to be sprayed over a large area._

 _Immediately after the creature broke from its film, May knew what it was. An Extractor. Unlike her previous dreams, the dream did not end with the creation of this new bio-structure._

 _A Drone came from behind May and walked through an opening in the Extractor's side. Moments later, the Drone exited the Extractor while holding something wrapped in a green membrane. May watched the Drone take the green sac and turn towards May. The Drone walked past May, and as it did, May turned around to find that a Hatchery had appeared behind her. The Drone walked up to the Hatchery and placed the green sac into a small recess in the Hatchery's side._

 _After May watched the Drone make several more trips back and forth to the Extractor, a second Drone came out of one of the entrances to the Hatchery. This Drone, unlike the first, did not go to the Extractor. Instead, it walked a short distance away and began morphing just like the Drone that created the Extractor had. This new bio-structure took over twice as long to complete as the Extractor had, but like the Extractor, when the creature finished growing, it broke from its film and sprayed a puss-like substance everywhere. May could tell that this bio-structure served a very different purpose than the Extractor, and she knew what it was called: a Spawning Pool. When the Spawning Pool was complete, May eagerly waited to see what it would do, but to her disappointment, May awoke._

* * *

The following week after moving into an apartment provided courtesy of the government, May told "Matt" about her ability to psychically communicate with the Hatchery, but she did not mention her control over it or her ability to see what it saw. She simply told him that the Hatchery wanted permission to build two new bio-structures, and that it would need to build them on the Creep that was being contained. "Matt" said that he would discuss it with his superiors, and that he would let her know what they said.

The next day, May received a call from "Matt." Apparently, Uncle Sam wanted to know about these new bio-structures almost as much as May did. Whoever "Matt" reported to gave the Hatchery, and in effect May, permission to build an Extractor and a Spawning Pool.

May was to build one structure first, and after it was complete, she was to build the other. This would give the scientists some time to study the first while giving the second some time to grow.

* * *

 **It looks like I will be able to get one more chapter out before Monday. I've got my fingers crossed!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Okay guys, I was barely able to get this out, but here it is!**

 **I found a plot hole in the story while I was editing this. Part of chapter 3 contradicted a part in chapter 5. This has been fixed for all of those who read this later, but for those who are reading this as I post, there is something about the story that I would like to mention.**

 **At this point, May has finished her second semester of college. I meant to make chapters 3 &5 say this, but the original draft did not. In the original, May was in the middle of her second semester at this point. Now, May has finished one year of college, and is free until Fall...or is she? MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Spoiler? Maybe, maybe not. **

**Enjoy chapter 6 of the story. :)**

* * *

May soon found out that she had no choice but to construct the Extractor first because there were not enough resources to build both the Extractor and the Spawning Pool.

The men who were burning the Creep growing around the Hatchery began allowing the Creep to spread in one direction, and May waited until there was enough Creep around the Hatchery, and began her first Extractor. Although it wasn't necessary for the Extractor to be constructed on Creep, May decided that it would be easier if she did not have to explain why the Extractor did not need Creep to be constructed while the Spawning Pool did. When there was room to build, the side of the Hatchery opened and let her Drone exit.

Everyone who saw the Drone took an involuntary step back. The Drone, on the other hand, continued its way uninterested in the humans that surrounded it. It had only one thing in its mind: to morph into an Extractor. As it had done in her dream, the Drone found a location, curled up as much as possible, and surrounded itself in a film.

May's first Extractor was underway.

* * *

For the next twenty one hours, May was extremely anxious, nervous, excited, and fearful all at the same time. She had a hard time focusing on anything. Reading was impossible, and even eating was annoying. She could constantly feel the Extractor's presence growing in the back of her mind.

She morphed another Drone while she was waiting, for she would need a new Drone to carry resources from the Extractor to the Hatchery. She wanted to morph two Drones, but she found that there were not enough minerals within the Hatchery to do so.

Finally, the next day, the Extractor finished. May had been eagerly awaiting this moment, for more reasons than one. If her dreams were entirely accurate, then the Extractor would break through the film that was covering it, and soak everyone around it in the puss-like liquid that supported its fragile insides during its early stages of growth.

May was not disappointed. Just as in her dream, the Extractor spewed sticky, clear liquid everywhere around it. None of the scientists around the Extractor knew when it would finish, and were unprepared for the disgusting shower that they received. May did not think that the substance was dangerous, but she did not envy the few people who were unlucky enough to have their mouths open when the fluid burst from the film covering the Extractor.

Given the amount of vomiting that followed the Extractor's completion, May quickly decided that the birthing liquid tasted less than appetizing. May immediately sent out her Drone to collect the precious recourses that the Extractor would provide.

Once the wary scientists in white coats became somewhat comfortable around the Extractor and working Drone, they began their many tests and observations.

When enough resources were collected, May created another Drone to help the first. After a day of harvesting resources, the small colony of four was ready to have an upgrade. May targeted one of the Drones and instructed it to morph into a Spawning Pool; a task the Drone performed with extreme delight.

The Spawning Pool was completed two days later, and when it finished May sensed a new section of DNA unlock. She focused on the sensation and, when she did, she could see the DNA in her head. It was like a memory, but different. She could see all of the DNA, but it was neither jumbled nor ordered. The DNA was not so much a physical thing that she could seein her mind, but rather a thing that she could understand and recreate if she wanted to.

She explored the DNA in her mind and began deciphering it. As she explored, she found specific segments of DNA. Zergling DNA, Roach DNA, Ultralisk DNA, Leviathan DNA, she saw it all. However, she did not fully comprehend the scale of the creatures whose DNA she was exploring. The different creature's DNA was patched together, separate but unified. She found that she could change the DNA at will and then see what those changes would do. Everything she tried to change, however, was worse after she changed it, and she could not justify keeping any of the changes that she tried. This took place the day before May's next meeting with "Matt," and that night May had another dream.

May stood within her Hatchery. She looked around expecting to see larvae swarming the ground, but what she saw instead was a large chrysalis in the center of the Hatchery. May jumped when a loud crunching sound filled the Hatchery. The chrysalis was cracking. May took several steps back as the cracks grew. Then the chrysalis shattered forcing May to turn away and hold her arm up to protect her face from the chunks of the chrysalis flying away from the center of the Hatchery. May faced the center of the hatchery once more to see what the cocoon had birthed. The creature she saw was much taller than her. The top of her head reached its shoulders, and it was unlike anything she had seen before. The closest thing that she could compare it to was a centaur with a spider's body instead of a horse's. It had webbed legs and although it looked a little bit humanoid from the waist up, it was very distinctly not human. It did nothing, but May knew what it was. This was a Queen, and it would soon become invaluable.

The day after the Spawning Pool's creation, May had another routine meeting with "Matt," but not before she ordered a Queen to be birthed. She told "Matt" as little as possible about the Spawning Pool because she still did not trust his "superiors." She said that the Hatchery was still processing the DNA that the Spawning Pool had unlocked. It was not entirely untrue; the Hatchery was processing new DNA, but the process was that of creation not analyzation as she implied.

The next night, the Queen was complete. May could feel it immediately, for the signature it left in her mind was far greater than the Hatchery or any of the creatures that it produced. She was watching an uninteresting movie on Netflix, and decided that her new Queen would be far more interesting than the movie, so she reached out to the Queen with her mind, and she felt the Queen react.

"How may I serve you my queen?" a raspy voice said, surprising May and causing her to inhale sharply and stiffen. The voice was clear in May's mind, and she could tell that it had come from the Queen. She looked around the room to make sure that nobody was around despite the fact that she was alone in a nearly empty apartment.

"What are you?"

She asked the Queen out loud.

"I am a Queen, my queen." It replied.

This was strange. May pondered her next question, and decided to try to think the question to the queen.

"What do you do?" She asked in her head.

"I do as my queen wishes, my queen." It replied. Not particularly helpful, but interesting to say the least. May thought of a more useful question.

"What can you do?"

"I can breathe. I can walk. I can talk. I can command. I can inform. I can kill. I can increase larvae production within Hatcheries, Lairs, and Hives. I can heal other Zerg. I can produce Creep Tumors. I can advise you. I can..."

"Okay, okay." May interrupted, "I get it." . May waited for a response, but the Queen remained silent.

"What is a Zerg?" May asked.

"The Zerg are a race of ever evolving creatures that have formed a complex symbiotic relationship with one another." The Queen answered.

"What is a Creep Tumor?"

"A Creep Tumor creates Creep, my queen."

Well, Creep Tumor was a very descriptive name.

"What do you mean when you say that you can advise me? What can you advise me on?"

"I can answer questions if I have the answer and give you ideas about what to do when you ask for them. I can advise you on anything you wish, my queen."

"Okay. First, stop saying 'my queen' at the end of everything you say. Second, what do you suggest I do now?"

The Queen took a moment to think. May could feel it searching the minds of her underlings. She seemed to focus on the scientists currently running tests on the Spawning Pool. Suddenly, the queen answered with enthusiasm.

"I suggest that you destroy those who seek study the Zerg! This cannot be allowed!"

"Whoa! Hold on, there will be no destroying anything! Besides, even if we...I wanted to destroy the scientists, how would I? I can't just throw Drones at them."

The Queen thought for a moment before enthusiastically replying.

"You are right my queen, Drones do not fare well in combat! We should morph in Zerglings to destroy the..." She paused for another moment; then she continued with a slight tone of disappointment. "If we wanted to destroy these creatures, we would need to morph in Zerglings to do so."

"What are Zerglings?" May asked, and thus begun a long series of questions for the Queen to answer. She learned that the Hatchery, Drones, Spawning Pool, ect... were all parts of the Zerg, and the various species of Zerg within the race. She learned about all of the different segments of DNA that she had seen, and was in disbelief over the size of some of the Zerg.

May also found that not only were the Zerg absolutely loyal to their queen but they were also capable of surviving in almost all weather conditions. May Googled the hottest and coldest temperatures that were on earth, and found that the Zerg could thrive in such conditions.

Another thing that May had been wondering was how her Extractor worked. She knew that it was capable of gathering resources for the Zerg, but she wanted to know how this was possible. The Queen was all to happy to tell May how the Extractor worked. According to the Queen, the Extractor, unlike most Zerg bio-structures, had root-like tentacles that could dig deep into the Earth's crust and absorb minerals, water, and, if it dug deep enough, energy that resonated from the planet's mantle.

By the time May ran out of questions to ask, it was well past midnight, and her head swam from trying to process all of the new information. Thus she made her way to bed, and instructed her new Queen, who she named Matilda, to try not to kill anyone while she was asleep. Though the humor was lost on the Queen, May got a kick out of it.

* * *

Over the next week, May began to notice that everywhere she went, a black SUV followed. It was subtle, for the SUV always followed from a distance. It became a game of her's, albeit an unsettling one, to spot the SUV when she drove from place to place. At first she thought that she was simply over-analyzing her surroundings and noticing black SUVs everywhere, but then she took note of the SUV's license plate. This minor detail confirmed her suspicions: it was the same SUV.

It did not take a genius to figure out that she was being monitored, and she figured that it was the government; it irked her to no end. She began trying to lose her SUV tail when she drove places.

As time wore on, it frightened her more. Was someone watching her friends and family also? Were they there to watch her, or keep her from doing something that they did not approve of? Had they bugged her home? Her car? Her friend's homes? Was she becoming paranoid? No, a person is not paranoid if someone is actually chasing them.

She began to think of something to get rid of her government friends on a grander scale. Why were they following her? Because of her connection to the Zerg, no doubt. Could she pretend that the Zerg stopped talking to her? Maybe, but they could just say that she was faking it, despite the fact that she had always been a good liar.

Could she advance the Zerg enough that she had some political advantage? Not where she was right now. Any attempt to build something without Big Brother's approval would likely result in the building's destruction, if not the destruction of her entire brood. Perhaps she could trick them into allowing the Zerg to escape, or escape without them noticing at all? While pondering these questions, she consulted Matilda.

"Matilda?"

"Yes, my queen?"

"What did I say about saying 'my queen' after every sentence?"

"That it was obnoxious."

"It is, so please stop."

"There is no need to be polite, my..." Matilda stopped herself short of annoying May further.

"Matilda, is there any way to get a Zerg out of the military's confinement?"

"There are many ways. I would suggest morphing Zerglings and destroying the humans that keep us in a cage!"

"Are there any ways that don't involve killing anyone?" May asked with boredom and more annoyance in her mental voice.

"Yes. Changelings can get through almost any defense. Overlords can fly out of the area with ease. A Nydus Worm could burrow through the earth and exit anywhere on the planet. With enough Drones, you could walk them through the enemy line with acceptable losses... That is all that I can think of right now."

"What can a Changeling do?"

"It can scout."

"Can it bring a drone with it?"

"Not unless the Drone follows it."

"Well, we can't send an Overlord because it would be easily seen and shot down. I guess we could use a Nydus Worm, but how would we get them to let us build it? Do you have any ideas on how to make a Nydus Worm sound perfectly safe?"

"We could tell them that it is harmless. We could tell them that it is like a Spawning Pool."

May paused, Matilda had just come up with a somewhat reasonable idea! Maybe she was learning. "I like that idea Matilda! Good job!"

"Telling them that the Nydus Worm is like a Spawning Pool?"

"No, we could tell them that it is for storage or something. Good job Matilda."

"Thank you. I live to serve."

"Now, how do I make a Nydus Worm?"

* * *

The following Tuesday, May met with "Matt" again.

They met at a fast food restaurant this time instead of at May's apartment. May arrived early to see if "Matt" would send anyone to scout the restaurant before he got there. To her disappointment, no scouts arrived as far as she could tell, so she resorted to watching the news.

"Just two short weeks ago, I.S.I.S. went from being an extremely dangerous terrorist group to being a coalition of nations. Now, this new I.S.I.S. coalition is beginning to show signs of hostility towards Israel. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria have all proclaimed their uniform hatred for Israel, and are on the brink of declaring war with the small nation. With us today is..."

May lost interest at that point, she did not really want to hear two people argue about what should be done. She did, however, wonder what "Matt" thought about it; him being a federal agent and all. After several minutes, "Matt" came in and stood next to May's table.

"Do you want anything to eat? I'm paying."

"Sure." She replied as she made her way other feet. She had not eaten breakfast, and her appetite had returned since the Hatchery was created.

The two ordered, got their drinks, and sat down.

"So, has the tree made any requests since we last spoke?" "Matt" said. He had made May memorize a code so that the two could talk without raising too much suspicion.

"Yeah. I heard that it wants to plant a new seed."

"A new seed?" He said as he took out a note pad. "What for?"

"Storage."

"Okay, I will make sure to ask about that." He said as he took quick notes.

They talked for several moments before their number was called. "Matt" got up to get the food, and when he returned, May spoke up.

"What do you think about Israel's situation? If I.S.I.S. attacks, should we help?"

"Matt" passed May her food, which was significantly more than "Matt's," and unwrapped his own. He sat there thoughtfully for a moment before replying.

"I don't think that it is my place to say. On the one hand, we should help our allies, but on the other, we should not risk so many American lives."

May finished her first burger before saying anything. "What if we did not have to risk any American lives?"

"Matt" chuckled. "Then I'd say 'go for it.' I am not an idealist though. People on all sides are killed during war."

"Not if our tree could grow thorns."

"Matt" snapped his head up at this and stared May in the eyes. "We need to finish this conversation elsewhere. Hurry and finish."

May continued to eat, but now she ate quickly. After they ate, "Matt" instructed May to follow him.

When they finished, "Matt" hurried them out of the restaurant, they got in their cars, and "Matt" left the restaurant closely followed by May.

May followed "Matt" for several minutes before they arrived at a plain office building surrounded by razor wire topped fences. There was a guard house and three guards at the entrance who checked "Matt's credentials and let the two of them through.

"Matt" parked his car and May parked next to him. The two got out and met.

"Do not speak to anyone in here, do not go anywhere other than where I say you can go, and follow me very closely."

With that, he walked off with May following close behind.

He led her to the building where there was a check in area blocking the entrance. May had a picture taken of her, and was given a visitor's badge with her picture on it. Then "Matt" led her to an elevator, through several hallways, and into a small room. The room was very plain, having only a metal table and two chairs, and had a large mirror. "Matt" told May to sit in the chair and wait, so she did, and "Matt" left. May looked at the mirror again. She saw herself clearly, but she could also see that the mirror was a two way mirror.

Most people would not be able to see through it, but May had much better eyesight than most people, and she now knew that it was thanks to the Zerg. May could see slightly through the treated glass. She saw a very small empty room that was as wide as the one she was in, but the other room was more like a hallway with one door because of how narrow the room was. After May had been nervously waiting several minutes, she saw several men enter the small room behind the mirror. She tried to pretend that she could not see them, but it was harder than she would have thought. "Matt" entered with a recording device, sat down in the chair across from the table, and spoke.

"Please state your name for the record."

"Am I being detained?"

"Matt" sighed. "Technically, yes. But all you need to do is answer a few questions. Then you may leave... Please state your name for the record."

"May Janine Flowers."

"Could you repeat the conversation we had about Israel as best as you can?"

"I asked what you thought about what was going on in Israel. You said that you couldn't answer, but that we have to choose between helping allies and preserving American lives. I asked what you would think if no American lives could be lost. You said that you are a realist, but that you would support helping Israel if no American lives were lost. Then I said that something like 'if out tree grew thorns, then no lives would be lost.'"

"What did you mean by that last part?"

"Should I say it regular?"

"Yes, forget our code for now."

"I meant that we might be able to persuade the Hatchery to fight for us."

"And what made you think that the Hatchery can fight?"

"Well, it is a huge biological building that makes other buildings and creatures to gather food and resources to expand. If it can do all of that, it makes sense that it would be capable of defending itself."

"Do you know how it would defend itself if it could?"

"No." She lied.

"Did your comment about the tree growing thorns have anything to do with the new structure you mentioned?"

"No." She lied again.

May could see "Matt" thinking for a moment.

"Thank you, wait here." He said as he stood and left the room.

"You're welcome." She said sarcastically when he left.

A few minutes later, he returned and escorted her off of the compound. Once outside, "Matt" told her that his superiors had approved of the storage structure. May tried very hard to contain the grin that threatened to appear on her face. She was sick of her Zerg being the government's experiment, and the government had just told her that the Zerg could be free.

* * *

 **At over 3.5k words, this is the longest chapter so far. I don't know if any future chapters will be this long, but I do know that this chapter's length was part of the reason I almost couldn't publish it tonight...well...tonight for me. I have no idea what time it is for you.**


	7. Chapter 7

May returned home. She was shaken by the fact that she had been arrested illegally, but otherwise okay. Once home, she immediately ordered her Hatchery to morph into a Lair. She was ready to be done with this madness. The meetings were annoying, and being followed was unsettling, but being arrested and interrogated was enough for her to commit to her expantion idea.

The Lair would take just under two and a half days to finish, and the Nydus Network would take a day and a half to complete. She was determined to find a new home for her brood within that time. She started searching online for an island or piece of desert somewhere on earth that nobody occupied. Her search was surprisingly unsuccessful as most of the world was under some form of oversight by an independent nation. Every know island had been claimed, and even the most remote areas of jungle were under the control of an established government.

She searched for hours before she stumbled across the Marie Byrd Land. The Marie Byrd Land, May found, was the largest piece of unclaimed land in the world. It was located in Antarctica and was slightly smaller than Alaska: the largest state in America. May found that the bitterly cold environment and the difficulty of reaching the Marie Byrd Lands made even the craziest of people shy away from the unclaimed expanse.

May had found her Brood's new home, and all she had to do then was wait. As always, the anticipation was difficult to work through. Days passed, and May was a mess. She couldn't sleep, a problem that was becoming increasingly common, and she was rarely in the mood to eat anything. In spite of this, May did not venture to seek help. If she were to see a doctor, she ran the risk of being revealed as a freak, and she did not know anybody that she trusted. Normally she would be content to read her books, but she could not focus with the constant anticipation of freeing her Zerg.

After days of sleepless nights and little food, the Nydus Network finished, May immediately ordered it to surface at the center of the Marie Byrd Land. She had not really thought about it until now, but she began to wonder how the creature would get so far.

"Matilda?" May asked telepathically as she tried for the upteenth time to sleep.

"How may I serve you?" came the usual reply.

"How will the Nydus Worm make it between where you are and the Marie Byrd Lands?"

"It will dig." Matilda answered.

May frowned.

"I figured that much. How will it get there though? It can't just dig straight down can it?" May asked.

"It could if you wanted it to surface on the other side of this planet." Matilda responded.

"And die in the magma?"

"It can survive the pressure and heat of this planet's core." Matilda said casually.

"Oh, okay. Thanks."

"It is my pleasure, my queen." Matilda responded.

May sent a wave of disapproval at Matilda, and May could feel Matilda shy away from her telepathic signature.

The tunnel took just over twelve hours to dig, and when it was finished, May sent three Drones down it. One to morph into a Hatchery, one to morph into an Extractor, and one to gather what the Extractor collects. May expected the trip to take at least as long as the time it took for the Nydus Worm to get there, but she was proven wrong when the Drones arrived less than a minute later. When she asked Matilda about it, Matilda explained that Nydus Worms use psionic energy to propel things at blinding speeds through their bodies. This energy is what allowed the Zerg to communicate over long distances without trouble. May then waited until her drones back home had collected enough resources to build a Hatchery.

By the time May's next meeting with "Matt" came, May had a fully functioning base in the Marie Byrd Land. Even though the place was so remote and cold that it was deemed uninhabitable, the Zerg had no issues. "Matt" asked about the three Drones that had gone into the Nydus Network, and May said that they were finishing some things that could not be done by the bio-building itself. It was an answer that he seemed to accept.

May continued working on expanding her Antarctic base, and had to create Overlords for the first time when she had to many Drones to handle on her own. After a while, May found that calling her new base "the Marie Byrd Land base" was annoying, so she decided to refer to the Marie Byrd Land as Broodland.

* * *

Three weeks after her interrogation, May's base in Broodland had grown significantly. She had a Lair, a new Hatchery, a Roach Warren, a Hydralisk Den, a second Nydus Network, two new Extractors, two Evolution Chambers, and a couple hundred Zerglings and Roaches. There were also a few dozen Hydralisks waiting to finish growing inside their eggs. Her Zerg was far from struggling, for she had an excess of biomass available for immediate use.

Life was looking up for May. She got a job at a local grocery store as a cashier, and, although the SUV still followed her everywhere, she was having little trouble from Big Brother. The FBI even started testing Zerglings for military purposes the day before; it turned out that they can run up to seventy miles per hour (about 113 kph). The FBI was still very far from letting the Zerg expand further than the three bio-buildings that were in America, but it was a start.

* * *

May got off of work at 9:00 at night. She had been at work since noon, and was more than happy to be going home. As she made her way to her car, she noticed something missing from the parking lot: the black SUV. She scanned the parking lot twice, but her SUV stalker was nowhere to be found. May chuckled to herself as she got into her car and pulled out her phone to text John.

"It looks like the guys you sent to follow me decided to take a night off." She sent the message to John.

She then started the car and made her way to her apartment. She parked her car in the dark and lonely apartment complex parking lot, and gabbed her purse, phone, and keys. She stepped out of the car, but before she got a chance to close the car door, an arm reached out from behind her and shoved a rag into her face.

The owner of the arm pulled her close to his chest and held her until the chloroform on the rag did its work subduing May's mind as her body fought. Once May was unconscious, her attacker picked her up and placed her into a black van before driving off with a black SUV following closely behind. Once in the van, May began regaining consciousness, but someone had tied her hands behind her back, and her legs were tied together at the ankle. Instinctively, May reached out to Matilda.

"Matilda?" She called with her mind.

"How may I serve you?"

"I think that I am being kidnapped."

Her thoughts were foggy from the drug, and she had a hard time focusing.

"Are you in danger my queen?"

Matilda replied with anxiousness in her mental voice.

"I...don't...know. No, no I am not... I might be."

"I don't understand."

"Just...come and get me. Do what I would do. I don't think...I am not thinking...straight. I..I...was at home."

"Yes, my queen, I can feel your presence. I will send Zerglings to assist you."

"Thanks."

Now that she had the comfort of knowing that someone was trying to find her, May adjusted her position to get a better view of the van. When she did, someone noticed her movement and spoke. She could not tell what language the voice was speaking, but she did not like his tone. She turned herself in time to see a man hover over her. The man was wearing all black and had a ski mask on. He was bent down over her, and when May looked at his hand, she saw that it held a needle that was quickly approaching her arm. Before she could react, she had already been injected with whatever was in the syringe. For the second time that night, the world went dark.

* * *

"Matt", AKA John Dillinger, was sitting in his car, which was parked just out of sight of the Lair that swarmed with people taking tests, and finishing up his review of the operation behind the trees. His phone buzzed in his pocket, but he waited until he finished the last few sentences before checking it. Once finished, he pulled out his phone. The message was from May, and he read it several times before replying.

"Nobody was sent to follow you. Where are you?" He pressed send.

Confused, and somewhat worried, John called a security detail and instructed them to go to May's apartment and see if she is there. After that, he sat and pondered who could know enough about the Zerg to discover May's importance. John was startled out of his thoughts by M16 fire coming from the Lair. He quickly got out of his car and began making his way towards the bio-structure. If someone had misfired, he was going to have their head. Before he got to the other side of his car, he stopped.

Unearthly screams once only heard in nightmares began to echo from the forest. And they were getting louder. The thundering of feet grew to accompany the screams. John stood his ground and drew his pistol as he stared into the dark woods. Suddenly, a creature burst from the forest. It jumped over John and his car so fast that John could not get a shot at it. It was quickly followed by five other creatures who jumped over or around his parked car and into the woods on the far side. John popped a few shots in their direction, but was doubtful that they found their mark. A few moments later, five white SUVs with red stripeson their sides came speeding down the road to the Lair. The last one stopped by John and rolled down the window.

"What happened?" John yelled with anger in his voice.

"Six Zerglings just escaped. We fired on them, but they got away." The driver replied.

John pulled out his phone and called the FBI Deputy Director.

"Mr. Ledgett."

...

"We have a containment breach at the Acorn site, Sir. I am requesting that a helo be deployed to track the creatures."

...

"I'm afraid that won't be an option, Sir."

...

"Because they can run over seventy miles per hour, Sir."

...

"Yes Sir."

He hung up the phone and addressed the driver of the SUV.

"What are you waiting for? Those suckers are fast. Go get them."

With that, he turned around, got in his car, and sped off towards headquarters.

* * *

Morning came and went. John had lost the Zerglings, and May had disappeared. When the security detail arrived at the apartment complex, they found May's car door open and she was not in her room. John tried calling her several times, but it was becoming clear that something had happened to her.

When the Deputy Director heard of May's disappearance, he ordered the scientists to take as many samples as they could of bio-buildings before burning everything other than the Lair. John's world had been shaken over night. He had one job, and had seemingly failed at it in all accounts. He would probably get put on temporary suspension while an investigation was done, and he was worried that he would get demoted. He had also let an innocent civilian disapear on his watch.

John wearily stepped out of the helicopter and walked to the roof entrance of the FBI headquarters. He had been searching for the Zerglings all night, but the creatures seemed to be as elusive as they were fast.

After a short elevator ride and several turns, John reached the office of the Deputy Director. He knocked quietly on the door frame of the open door before entering.

"No luck?" The Director asked.

"No Sir. It is like they disappeared Sir."

The Director sat at his desk stroking his chin for several long seconds.

"I can't blame you for this John. It was more important to keep May a secret than it was to keep her safe."

"Yes Sir." John replied.

"Go find May. If she doesn't turn up in fourty eight hours, I will have to suspend you pending further investigation. You know the drill."

"Yes Sir."

John left the Director's office and made his way to the coffee machine. He had already had a long night, but it didn't look like the next couple of days were going to be any better.

* * *

May awoke from her drug induced sleep. Her head was pounding, and the world was spinning. For several minutes she did not move, waiting for the dizziness and accompanying nausea to subside. When it did, she opened her eyes and lifted her head slowly.

She found herself in a room with dirty cynderblock walls and a grimy concrete floor. It was dark outside, there was a wooden door in the front left corner, and in the center of the room was a thick wooden pole that reached from the floor to the roof. Her arms were tied behind her back with a rope and the wooden pole stood between her back and hands, thus keeping her in place; her legs were tightly secured to the bottom of the pole by a rope around her ankles. May tried to squirm her way out of the restraints, but she found that the ropes were more than a match for her. After rubbing her wrists raw, May gave up. Thinking again about how she could escape, she unfurled her wings and tried to cut the rope with the sharp tips that extended from them. She came close, but only managed to scratch up her own hands and arms. Realizing the hopelessness of escape on her own, May contacted Matilda.

"Matilda, are you there?"

"Yes, my queen. Are you alright?"

"I am fine. Where am I?" May asked.

"I do not know how to tell you in words as I am not familiar with the geography of this world, but you have traveled east about a third of the way around the planet."

"A third?!"

"Yes."

"Have you sent for anyone to come for me?"

"Yes, there are three Overlords heading your way. They contain four Roaches each. I also sent an Overseer into orbit to locate you visually."

"How long until they get here?"

"About three days. The Overlords are not designed for long distance travel."

"Okay, what about the Overseer?"

"It is in position."

With that, May searched for the mind of the orbiting Overseer. She found it, looked through its eyes, and ordered it to find her. Its eyes flicked slightly to the right and zoomed in on the Earth. The overseer zoomed onto a building in an area May did not recognize from the brief glimpse she had while the Overseer's eyes focused. She then ordered it to zoom out slowly. As the Overseer's vision encompassed more area, May, to some extent, recognized where she was: in the Middle East.

May gave the Overseer its mind back and focused on her own surroundings once more. For the next several hours, May tried to free herself, but that resulted in nothing more than scratching her arms and rubbing her wrists further.

Her struggling ceased when she heard footsteps outside of the door. She quickly retracted her wings, and a man with a black scraggly head of hair and beard stepped in through a door in the corner.

"I see you are awake." The man said in a thick accent. He was slightly less than six feet tall, and had jet black hair covering his head and face.

May glared in response to the man's statement as he paced around her.

"And you are trying to get away." The man said as he passed by May's bloody hands

After he went one full circle around May, he spoke again.

"What is your name?" He asked calmly as he stopped and stood directly in front of May, who continued her glare. He waited several moments before speaking again.

"I asked you a question. I suggest you answer it." The man said, his calm tone now replaced with an angry growl. May remained silent as her glare continued.

Suddenly, the man backhanded her with a heavy hand. The blow was enough to make May's teeth cut deeply into her cheek. Before she could shake the dizziness that now clouded her head, the man grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him.

"Do I need to ask again?"

May said nothing as blood began to fill the scratch made by the man's hand.

Getting angry at being ignored by a woman, the man kicked the top of May's shin at a steep angle causing the blow to scrape down the entirety of her shin. This earned a scream through clenched teeth, an May hunched over in pain. When she did, the man grabbed her hair and pulled her back up, slamming her head into the wooden pole and keeping it there.

"It is getting late, and I want you to have plenty of time to think about this little bit of pain you think you feel. From now on, when I ask a question, you will answer. Got it?"

May remained silent.

The man punched her in the stomach, causing her to double over and nearly vomit on the ground.

"You will answer next time."

He then let go and walked out. As soon as the door shut, May burst into tears. She had blood running down her cheek and a throbbing and bleeding shin that she could not console. She did not know how long she cried, but when the tears stopped, she desperately tried to think of a way to escape. No new ideas came.

Whether out of habit, boredom, desperation, or some mixture of the three, May began going through the minds of her brood; the emotions of each of the members of her swarm reflected her own: stressed. She then began looking at the DNA of the Swarm and trying to find something to improve, but there was nothing that could be done. Then an idea struck her.

She went from looking at the Swarm's DNA to her own. What she saw was incredible. She saw her own DNA. It was very condensed to make room for the DNA of the Zerg, and the two had a small amount of overlap. Part of the DNA regulating Mutalisk wings had combined with her own. There were other bits and pieces of Zerg DNA that had been mixed in with her's , but nothing other than the Mutalisk DNA was connected deeply enough to change her appearance. Curious, May began to disassemble her DNA. Piece by piece, she removed strands, inspected them, and sorted them. Through this process, she removed all of the Zerg DNA that connected to her own. Then, she rebuilt her DNA with what she had left. It was difficult at first but, like a puzzle, what was meant to go where became easier to understand as she worked. May examined her newly reconstructed DNA when she finished. It was very different than the Zerg, but is was very similar. At the same time It was as if she was somehow connected to the Zerg on a genetic level.

May did not dwell on this oddity for long however, for it came to her attention that there was more DNA in her than in the Zerg she had seen before. A part of DNA entirely cut off from the Zerg, similarly to the way that hers now was. As she inspected it, she found that this DNA was as far from Zerg as she could imagine. The Zerg DNA was flexible and adaptable, it allowed changes to be mad easily. Any part of Zerg DNA could be changed without affecting anything other than what that DNA was for. This DNA, however, was the opposite. Instead of being made of replaceable parts, it was one united whole. Any changes made to the DNA would cause the whole strand to become useless. It was not possible to add to it or change it. This unexplored DNA had about the same amount of information as the Zerg DNA.

Deciding that it would be unwise to be practically unconscious for to long, she brought her mind back into the world. When she opened her eyes, she saw a wall of dark green directly in front of her. She looked around and found that the wall curved around her and encased her entirely. She went to touch the wall and realized that her restraints and the pole she had been tied to were gone. The enclosed space began filling with a clear liquid. Something suddenly wrapped around her ankle and made its way up her body until she was covered in it. Then, for the third time since she had been taken, the world went dark.

* * *

 **For anyone wondering why May was kidnapped: May has some more important stuff to take care of first.**

 **This chapter has even more words than the last...by about 70 words...**

 **It has been a pleasure reading your reviews. It makes me want to post more often, so the more reviews, the more I post. (and hopefully, my grades will not be affected. lol)**

 **My replies to some comments:**

 **Johathin Stuart says** **"It is the morning, where are you?" - When I posted the last chapter, it was around one o' clock A.M. The best way for me to answer your question without giving out personal information is to say that I am under Central Daylight Time in the Americas. There may have been a delay between the time that I posted and the time that it showed up on FanFiction.**

 **Justreidabook says "Ok, I really didn't like this story when chapter one came out. I love it now." - I did not like the first chapters very much either. lol**


	8. Chapter 8

May awoke, and found herself encased in the same dark green shell that she was in before. Thankfully, the dark ooze that had coated her body was gone.

She did not know how long she had been unconscious, and she wasn't entirely sure that she wanted to get out. She reached up and touched the rock hard shell. It was incredibly smooth and uniform, and May couldn't figure out what it was made out of.

Looking around, May found that the wall continued above and below her in an egg shape. She then realized that she was submerged in liquid, and that she did not feel the need to breathe.

Unsure of how long she would be able to survive in the liquid, My pounded her fists on the wall in a vain attempt to break through. She unfurled her wings in she small space and they curled around her, but instead of the bony membraneless wings she had grown accustomed to over the years, the wings that curled around her were fully realized. Shocked and confused, May brought her hand up and felt the wings. They felt cool and smooth, and on the leading edge, they were rounded. They had a visibly smooth texture, but they did not feel slimy.

After seeing the change in her wings, May quickly checked the rest of herself. She was glad to find that her wings were the only part of her that had changed. Although she was proud of her Zerg, and she was thankful for her wings, she did not want to look like a Zerg. Not if she could help it.

She figured that she could use the claws on her wings to break through her confinement.

May decided to give her idea a try with her new wings. She swung her right wing, top claw first, as hard as she could at the shell of the egg structure, and was surprised to find that it not only broke through, but about half of her wing broke through. The wing had folded upon breaking through the shell, and the hole was only a couple of inches wide.

As she pulled her wing from the hole in the shell, the liquid around her began pouring out and air began bubbling in.

The air came in to slowly for her to get a breath from the air collecting at the top of her egg, so she tried again, but this time with her left wing. Again, a hole appeared, and more air began bubbling in.

After punching out a third hole, May had enough air to fill her lungs. With a gasp, she breathed in the life giving air.

May returned her attention to the shell and resumed her assault. She punched many more holes until she had a small, waist high hole that she could squeeze through. The liquid around her had been pouring out of the hole, and had leveled off around her waist. Through the hole, she found herself in the same room that she had been tied up in, but now she was unbound.

May squeezed through the hole in the shell. Once out of her shell, she called out to Matilda.

"Matilda, how far away are those Roaches?"

"About two yards beneath you, my queen."

"My queen?"

"It is such an honor to have you as my queen that I feel the need to tell you."

"Don't be a suck up...and stop calling me queen unless it is during a formal conversation. Go it?"

"Yes, I will try to remember that."

"I doubt that." May mumbled to herself.

May searched beneath her with her mind and found a dozen Roaches patiently waiting. She ordered one to surface in the room she was in and left the remaining eleven to follow underneath her feet.

When the Roach crawled out of the ground, May was immediately glad that she had only ordered one to the surface. The Roach towered over May, and its back scraped along the ceiling. The Roach took up a large portion of the room she was in, and having even one more Roach in the room would have made it extremely cramped. The Roach had spines made of a hard fingernail-like substance covering its turtle shell back. Near the front of its shell, the Roach had two appendages with scythe-like claws on the ends. They looked like Satan and the Grim Reaper created an oversized bug from Hades, and May was glad that it was under her control.

The Roach made surprisingly little noise when it surfaced, but it was apparently enough to attract attention. Someone in the next room began yelling in an indecipherable language, and May, fearing what might happen to her if she was caught again, turned and hid in her egg while footsteps approached the door to her prison room.

May watched everything through the eyes of her Roach.

The door slammed open and the black haired man with the accent casually walked in with a dufflebag in his hand. Following him closely were two men armed with AK-47s. When the trio saw the Roach, they froze, eyes wide.

May ordered the Roach to eliminate the AK-47 wielding men. The men were not even able to raise their guns before the Roach was upon them. The Roach buried a scythe deep into the chests of the two armed men, and tossed them into the nearby wall. The two men struck the wall hard and fell dead to the ground.

May's interrogator began screaming unintelligible words of distress as he watched his guards get taken down. May came out of her egg and approached him as several armed men began filing into the room. One by one, five men entered the room only to be sprayed with acid that ate through their bodies and weapons instantly. May's interrogator watched in horror as his comrades, and only chance of escape, melted a few feet away.

May walked towards the black haired man with her wings fully extended. The interrogator, it turn, backed away until he tripped over his own feet.

May stood over and then knelt down next to the black haired man.

"Who are you?" May asked forcefully.

The man's head jerked around to face May, and through his teeth, he spoke.

"I will not tell you anything!" The man returned with a thick accent before spitting at May's face.

May raised her hand and turned her head to stop the spit from hitting her, but it never reached her. Confused, May turned to look at her hand, and she found that the glob of saliva hovered inches in front of her own hand. Surprised and confused, she moved her hand to look at it better, but when she did, the saliva fell next to the captured man's face.

May shook her head and looked back at the man to continue asking questions. Figuring out how she made spit levitate would have to wait.

"What do you want with me?"

The man was silent as he stared daggers at May.

"If you want to play this game, then I will take what I need from you."

"I will not tell you anything!" He shouted before a Roach shoved a claw through his shoulder.

"You will tell me everything." May stated with finality.

Working off of an instinct that she didn't know she had, May closed her eyes and began searching her DNA. When she found the Infestor DNA, she copied several portions of it and merged them with parts of Larva DNA. When she was done, she opened we eyes to find a small, three inch long parasite in her hand.

"I don't want to do this to you, but if you won't talk..."

She left the sentence unfinished and gauged the man's response. There was determination in his eyes with a small hint on uncertainty, but he remained silent.

"Well?"

The man continued his silent stare.

"Then you brought this on yourself."

With that, she set the parasite on the man's chest. The parasite began injecting the man's chest with numbing agents as it started to burrow into him.

The man's look of determination was quickly replaced by horror as the parasite entered his body without causing even slight discomfort.

The parasite made its early to the man's brain and began to take over the man's body and mind. He screamed and thrashed for several seconds as he struggled to retain his hold on his conscious before slowly relaxing until he lay on the floor as though dead.

May began to gain control over his mind, and as she did, she sorted through his memories. She instantly learned Arabic and that she was in a small building in the middle of nowhere in south west Iraq. The I.S.I.S. nations had found out that May was important to the Americans, but the interrogator did not know why. They hoped to find out more about her by kidnapping and torturing her. She found that no people were at the site other than those her Roaches had just dealt with.

Although she found out all of the useful information that the interrogator knew, through the man's memories, she also saw personal information.

May gained all of this knowledge at once. She saw everything that the man remembered: she saw pieces of his childhood, and that he was raised to hate Israel and America, calling America the great Satan and Israel the little Satan. She saw him beat his wife, and trained with I.S.I.S. She saw every technique he used to make people talk, every person he had so horribly mutilated, every life he had brutally taken. She saw his conversation with her the day before. She saw it all at once.

May, able to handle neither the brutality of what she had seen, nor the amount of information she had just extracted, stayed as still as a statue for several seconds. When she did move, she slowly backed up until her back hit the wall. May slumped down until she sat on the ground, placed a hand over her mouth, and wept.

For what seemed like an eternity, May sat in the corner weeping. It was one thing to know that people were capable of horrible things, but it was entirely different to remember it being done to someone. Even if it was not her memories, May remembered the people the interrogator had killed.

Some time later, whether it was minutes or hours she could not tell, May looked up to see the black haired man laying on the ground. He was dead. The parasite took its toll on his body, and he died shortly after it read his memories. She stood up and left the small room, her three unburrowed Roaches in tow. She now knew who had kidnapped her, but she did not know why.

May searched her interrogator's memories for other torture outposts, but found no recollection of any more.

May walked outside and contemplated her options as the sun flooded heat down from the sky.

I.S.I.S. wanted her. That much she knew. Why they wanted her was obvious. How they knew to want her was unclear. She would need to work with "Matt" to find that out.

Could she truly trust "Matt?" Could "Matt" have had something to do with her getting kidnapped? Possibly. She had no way of knowing.

If she couldn't trust "Matt," who could she trust? Someone who had no option but to trust her.

"Matilda."

"Yes?"

"I want two new Nydus Networks in Broodland. The first will surface at your Lair in America; take everything in America to Broodland with it. The other Nydus Worm will come here. As soon as you get to Broodland, take half of the military and bring them here along with as many Drones as needed. You are to set up a base here.

"I want two Hatcheries, eighteen Spine Crawlers, eight Spore Crawlers, two Extractors and enough Drones to work them at maximum efficiency. Set up a defensive perimeter, but only attack something if I give you permission. While you are setting things up, I will be heading to Israel to discuss an alliance. Have you got all of that?"

"Yes. It will be done."

"Good."

May turned around and went back into the building to search for water. She quickly found a couple of canteens and brought them with her as she left the building again.

May looked around her, scanning the horizon, and then, with her mind, reached out for the Overseer in orbit above earth. She used it to plot a path west to Israel before setting off in that direction with her twelve Roaches that tunneling underneath her feet.

It was fairly hot out, but not nearly as hot as May had expected. The ground was rocky and dry, and no water was in sight. There were few plants where she went, and those she saw, she was not familiar with.

After walking for several minutes, May had an epiphany. She realized that she had wings, but that she was walking. With her old wings, there was not nearly enough surface area to fly, but with these new wings, she figured that she might have a chance.

She stopped, unfurled her wings, and began trying to flap them in a way that she thought would lift her. To her surprise, she was able to get her feet several inches off of the ground, but she could not stay in the air for more than a couple of seconds.

May couldn't help but smile at the exciting prospect of being able to fly. She took off in a sprint to try to get more lift and used her wings to shove the air around her downwards as she jumped. She launched high into the air with an exhilarating woosh.

She soared through the air for several breathtaking moments; as she tried glide, a slight shift in the wind blew her off balance and into a tumble. Her short, exciting flight suddenly turned into a fight to slow herself down. As the ground quickly approached, May felt as though time was slowing down. She could not get enough air under her wings, and barely managed to right herself before landing on the sun burned ground.

She tumbled several times before coming to a stop. She had managed to tuck her wings in asap the last moment, no thus keep them from getting bent awkwardly.

For several moments May lay on the ground, afraid to move. Nothing hurt too much, but she did not feel like finding out whether or not she was seriously injured. After a fall like that, she figured that she would be sore the next day.

Eventually, she got the courage to move. Slowly and carefully, May sat up. Nothing appeared to be broken, and she was not in any pain. She carefully stood up and dusted herself off before checking herself to make sure she had no injuries. All was well, and May's spirits lifted once more.

May walked for several steps. Then she began to jog. Finally, she went into a full sprint. A big smile appeared on her face as she jumped with her wings a second time. Again, she soared high into the air.

While she glided, she tried flapping her wings to retain her altitude, but she could not figure out the best way to move her wings. As she approached the ground, much slower than last time, she turned her wings and slowed in an ungraceful landing. She stumbled several steps when her feet hit the ground, but righted herself quickly.

She continued this process of flying and landing for several hours, each time getting better at both. She continued tirelessly jumping into the air and gliding back down until nightfall. When it became dark, May stopped and took note that her Roaches had managed to keep with her.

She ordered them to keep watch while she slept for the night. She ordered nine to keep a short distance away, and she ordered three to say near her.

Trouble never came, and May slept soundly through the night. When the sun rose, so to did May.

As she continued her trek to Israel, she became much better at flying and could almost maintain flight indefinitely. Almost.

After several hours of walking, May began to hear booming noises coming from beyond the horizon. Unsure of whether she was in Israel or not, she decided to go around the noise. She looked through her Overseer to find the best way around, but found that ahead of her was a city with military forces in and around it. She continued looking for a way into Israel, but the entire country was surrounded and there were many firefights going on around it. If she wanted in, she could either sneak in or break in.

May checked on her new base before deciding on a plan of action.

"Matilda, how are we doing with the new Hive Cluster?"

"The Nydus Worm has surfaced, and I am on my way to Broodland. Your Hatchery, Spine and Spore Crawlers, and Extracters began construction less than an hour ago, and there are seven hundred sixty four units guarding the area as you instructed."

"Seven hundred? I said half of my forces."

"Yes. Once you were taken, I ordered an increase in production. We had a large amount of biomass in storage."

"Okay, great! Good job. How long until the Crawlers are finished?"

"About a day."

"Alright. When they finish, I want all of the forces in Iraq, excluding the Swarm Hosts, to come to my position. Israel is surrounded, so we will break in."

"It will be done."

"Before I forget, what are our forces composed of?"

"About half are Zerglings, and the other half are Roaches with several dozen Hydralisks."

"Okay."

Now all May had to do was wait. For a day. Doing nothing. Then she would have to wait for her forces to arrive. For almost half of a day. Doing nothing. None of this appealed to her.

In less than two hours, May became too restless to wait for her forces. She had twelve Roaches at her disposal, and they were far from busy. She decided to test them.

If she was going to wage war, she needed to know how well her army would do in battle. Thus she took control of one of her Roaches and used the orbiting Overseer to tunnel the Roach to the city.

Through the Roach, May reached a group of military personnel in the dusty streets. They were wearing what she recognized, through her interrogator's memories, as Saudi Arabian uniforms. The eight of them appeared to be guarding a small road, and none of them were facing May's burrowed Roach.

May was tempted to attack them while they were turned away, but she decided against it. She wanted to test the combat capabilities of her army not their stealth. Thus, she unburrowed her Roach and had it make a sound somewhere between clicking and gargling. Several of the men turned around. When they saw the Roach, they began shouting in Arabic.

"Look at that thing!" "What is it?" "It looks like a big beetle or something."

While the Saudi Arabians were gawking at the Roach, May, through the Roach, looked at the surrounding area. The buildings were like many pieces jammed together to form walls on either side of the road. Some of the units had signs hanging that would have been brightly colored had they not been covered in a layer of tan dust. There were breaks in the building/walls that created other roads leading to different parts of the city.

The men May's Roach now faced were far from the front lines, and she assumed that they were supposed to act as lookouts to ensure that no Israeli soldiers made it through the Saudi Arabian section of the I.S.I.S. noose that threatened to strangle Israel.

May had seen enough of the city, and turned her Roach back to the Saudi Arabians. She spit acid at the farthest man since it would likely be her only chance at a clean shot. It hit him square in the chest, burning through his clothing, body armor, and flesh in moments. He barely had a chance to scream before he was dead.

In a heartbeat, the remaining seven soldiers processed what had happened. As the Saudi Arabians dove for cover, May's Roach shot another blast of acid. The second man's fate was the same as the first, and by the time he died, the remaining six had found cover and began to open fire.

For a second, the bullets did surprisingly little damage, but by the time May's Roach fired on a third man, its armor began to fracture. By the fourth shot, her Roach's armor was severely damaged in some area, and a couple of stray bullets had pierced into the Roach's organs. The four men who were left did enough damage that May did not want to risk taking a fIfth shot.

Thus, May burrowed the Roach and waited. She had learned from Matilda that Roaches healed faster while burrowed, but she was surprised at how fast that was. Within three minutes, the Roach was fully healed and ready for combat once more. She surfaced the Roach again, and saw the remaining four Saudi Arabian soldiers anxiously waiting for backup. They noticed the Roach immediately and opened fire as quickly as they could, but it was not enough; with fewer weapons, they stood little chance against the Roach, and each of the soldiers fell to the Roach's acid.

With its work done, May burrowed the Roach one last time and ordered it to return to her. As it was leaving, backup arrived for the eight I.S.I.S. soldiers in the form of two armored vehicles with machine guns mounted on top, but it was far to late to help the men who had faced the Roach.

As May's Roach returned, May scanned the battlefield with her Overseer. She found a couple of vehicles that, at first, she thought were tanks. She sent her Roach to investigate.

Upon unburrowing behind the vehicles, May's Roach saw what the vehicles were. Mobile artillery. Both of the vehicles had their guns pointed at the sky as they bombarded Israeli positions.

May ordered her Roach to attack one of the artillery vehicles, and the Roach spat acid on the turret of one of them.

The acid, upon striking the armored surface of the artillery, began to corrode the metal and paint. Smoke-like vapors rose from the acid as it ate away the armor.

Suddenly, both of the vehicles fired at the exact same time. Dust blew off of the ground over six yards away, and the earth shook from the power of the awesome machines.

Unfortunately for one of the artillery vehicles, the vibrations created from firing the cannon allowed a small amount of acid to get inbetween the body of the vehicle and the turret.

As the acid continued it's assault on the armor of the vehicle, the Roach spat another blast of acid. This time, the acid struck the base of the artillery's gun. Due to the near silent nature of the Roach's attack, none of the artillery crew knew that they were being fired on.

The Roach continued to spit several more globs of acid on the artillery as the crew reloaded the cannon. After about thirty seconds, the two artillery vehicles fired a second time.

Due to the Roach's acid, the structural integrity of the vehicle was significantly reduced, and the barrel had been slightly bent. When the cannon fired, the round struck the inner wall of the rifled barrel and detonated.

The resulting explosion crumpled the weakened armor, and the vehicle was entirely destroyed. Shrapnel from the vehicle was blasted in all directions, and the crew of the second artillery vehicle quickly found out that something was not right.

May ordered her Roach to attack the second artillery vehicle, and as it approached the vehicle to get within range, a hatch on top of the vehicle opened. A man stuck his head through the hatch, and May ordered her Roach to attack the man instead of the vehicle.

The artillery operator was far too concerned with the remains of the other artillery vehicle to notice the cause of its destruction. He paid for his single-mindedness with his life as a burst of acid struck the side of his head, killing him almost instantly.

As his body slumped back into the hatch, his fellow operators attempted to catch him. When they did, they grabbed parts of him that were still covered in acid. The operators' hands paid dearly for their mistake as acid began eating away at their flesh.

Seeing that the hatch on top of the artillery turret was still open, May ordered her Roach to shoot acid into the hole.

The Roach climbed on top of the vehicle and looked down into the hatch. Looking back was a horrified Saudi Arabian that soon met his end as he was doused in acid. The Roach fired a couple more blasts of acid into the artillery and left the crew for dead. May, pleased with the amount of work her Roach had done, ordered it to return to her.

Once the Roach returned, May was content to wait for her army. Now she knew how well her forces matched up to I.S.I.S., and she knew that getting to Israel would be a simpler task than she originally thought. She also had plenty of time to explore her Swarm's DNA.

* * *

 **I couldn't think of a good place to put this in the chapter, but I figured that I should clarify anyway. May IS still wearing clothing in spite of having just come out of a chrysalis. I wouldn't have a character running around naked...unless...well...Matilda...she...doesn't... You know what? If it somehow offends you that Matilda is naked, then you couldn't have played Starcraft II. Kerrigan was naked most of Starcraft I, HoTS, and LoTS. She was also naked in all of Brood War and WoL.**

 **Wow. I never realized how much time Kerrigan spent naked in the Starcraft series. It kind of weirds me out now that I think about it. I think that I am going to move on now.**

 **So the chapters seem to get longer every time. I just add more stuff as I edit, and it builds up. This chapter is 4.1k words long! I hope you guys enjoyed, and I hope that I can keep posting around once or twice a week.**

 **To justriedabook: I should have used the word "detained" instead of "arrested", and I think that I am going to go back and change that. To explain, she was "arrested" by "Matt" when she was taken to be questioned. She asked if she was free to go, or something like that, to which "Matt" replied that she was not. Technically, in America at least, that is considered being under arrest because she was not at liberty to leave the building.**

 **To : I guess Fanfiction is not worried about getting things up quickly. :(**

 **Edit: Just a quick shout-out to a couple of people who reviewed this chapter.**

 **To justriedabook: First, I don't really know what I was thinking. More than likely, I was not. I wish that there were some cinematics with Roaches in them. Gameplay is far from a reliable source for scale lol. Don't worry though, I went back and changed it.**

 **Second, chapter six has part of a news clip that explains that I.S.I.S. went from a terrorist group to a coalition of nations. I just now went back and had the news clip explain the situation in more detail. It was easy to miss before, but now it should be easier to take note of. You probably don't want to go back and find the part I changed, so here is what has happened.**

 **In real life, I.S.I.S. wants to destroy Israel, but they are not a part of the governments in the Middle East. This story is set just a little bit in the future, and in this future, I.S.I.S. ideologies have so permeated the Middle East that I.S.I.S. members make up the majority of government positions in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. These nations have formed an alliance whose main goal is to take over Israel. In other words, Israel is being attacked from all sides by an enemy with vastly superior numbers. A worst case scenario. (Well, I guess it could be worse if Turkey joined, but if they did, I doubt that Israel would be able to hold out long enough for the Zerg to make a difference.)**

 **Next, Extractors. I had meant to explain why Extractors work differently in the story than in the game, but I guess I didn't. I just went back and edited chapter 6 to add an explanation of how it works. I was in a pickle about how the Zerg were going to grow without Mineral Formations or Vesper Gas, so I had to make Extractors work differently. Thanks for pointing that out!**

 **Finally, May is still figuring out what she can and can't do. As time goes on, she will begin to realize her potential.**

 **To Arachnodon: 1. I didn't make it very clear in the story, but only May's wings have changed. I just went back and edited it to clarify that. So, my bad.**

 **2\. I know that the Zerg are much more powerful canonically, but I didn't want the Zerg to be able to curb stomp absolutely everything. I am trying to make individual Zerg units less powerful, but greater in number. I did, however, just change a little bit to make the Roach a bit tougher than before. Given how I was off on the size of Roaches, I think that a larger Roach would be able to take more damage.**

 **5\. I just went back and changed that. Thanks for letting me know!**

 **To everyone else, thank you for reviewing! Your feedback is what makes me want to keep writing. I hope you guys keep pointing out errors/things that make no sense/unclear wording/ect... I can't make anything better if I think everything is perfect already!**


	9. Chapter 9

**You should probably read this if you are reading as I post. If you read the last chapter before this chapter came out, then you need to read this. The last chapter had some errors in it, and thankfully, you guys noticed and let me know about them. I have gone back and fixed the errors, and I edited the non-story, bold portion of the last chapter. Here is what I added to that part. It explains all of the changes that I had to make to fix the errors in my previous chapters.**

 **To justriedabook: First, I don't really know what I was thinking when I made Roaches that small. More than likely, I was not. I wish that there were some cinematics with Roaches in them. Gameplay is far from a reliable source for scale lol. Don't worry though, I went back and changed it.**

 **Second, chapter six has part of a news clip that explains that I.S.I.S. went from a terrorist group to a coalition of nations. I just now went back and had the news clip explain the situation in more detail. It was easy to miss before, but now it should be easier to take note of. You probably don't want to go back and find the part I changed, so here is what has happened.**

 **In real life, I.S.I.S. wants to destroy Israel, but they are not a direct part of the governments in the Middle East. This story is set just a little bit in the future, and in this future, I.S.I.S. ideologies have so permeated the Middle East that I.S.I.S. members make up the majority of government positions in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. These nations have formed an alliance whose main goal is to take over Israel. In other words, Israel is being attacked from all sides by an enemy with vastly superior numbers. A worst case scenario. (Well, I guess it could be worse if Turkey joined, but if they did, I doubt that Israel would be able to hold out long enough for the Zerg to make a difference.)**

 **Next, Extractors. I had meant to explain why Extractors work differently in the story than in the game, but I guess I didn't. I just went back and edited chapter 6 to add an explanation of how it works. I was in a pickle about how the Zerg were going to grow without Mineral Formations or Vesper Gas, so I had to make Extractors work differently. Thanks for pointing that out!** **BTW, Extractors in this story send out things like tree roots to collect minerals, water, ect... from the ground. Before you say anything about the Marie Byrd Lands having no natural resources, I would like to note that there is lots of oil in that area. Nobody can collect it though because it is to cold to harvest and locate.**

 **Finally, about May using psionics to fly, May is still figuring out what she can and can't do. As time goes on, she will begin to realize her potential.**

 **To Arachnodon: 1. I didn't make it very clear in the story, but only May's wings have changed. I just went back and edited it to clarify that. So, my bad.**

 **2\. I know that the Zerg are much more powerful canonically, but I didn't want the Zerg to be able to curb stomp absolutely everything. I am trying to make individual Zerg units less powerful, but greater in number. I did, however, just change a little bit to make the Roach a bit tougher than before. Given how I was off on the size of Roaches, I think that a larger Roach would be able to take more damage.**

 **5\. I just went back and changed the summary. Thanks for letting me know!**

 **To everyone else, thank you for reviewing! Your feedback is what makes me want to keep writing. I hope you guys keep pointing out errors/things that make no sense/unclear wording/ect... I can't make anything better if I think everything is perfect already!**

* * *

May sat down with her back against one of her Roaches. The Roach's armored side was not the best backrest, and the hard, rocky ground was not the most comfortable seat, but it was all that she had. She had planned on sitting there for a while, so she positioned her Roach between herself and the evening sun.

Sitting in the shade of her Roach, May closed her eyes and began analysing the Zerg DNA within her. She began looking for sections to improve or change, but no such opportunities showed. For a while, May searched for even the slightest mistake or even something that seemed to be odd. However, all of the DNA was in perfect order and condition. It seemed that the Zerg had been perfect from the start.

Getting bored of the Zerg DNA, she began to let her mind wander. As soon as she relaxed her focus on the Zerg DNA, something caught her attention. There was a large amount of DNA that she had overlooked. It was completely separate from the rest of the DNA in her, and as she began inspecting it, May found that it seemed extremely structured.

It became apparent almost immediately that this was not Zerg DNA. The Zerg DNA was flexible. It could be picked apart, mixed, and altered with extreme ease. The DNA that May had just discovered was quite the opposite. In this DNA, every strand relied on another for its meaning. Any time May tried to figure out the purpose of a strand of DNA, she found that she had to first understand the purpose of some other strand.

May also found that all of the strands of DNA she tried to figure out were the basis for several other strands, and that in order to understand the base strand, she also had to understand the strands that the original strand was the base of. Just trying to figure out a tiny bit of the DNA made her head spin. She continued trying to find even a small amount of DNA that could be understood on its own, but it was to no avail.

May sighed and opened her eyes. As much as she wanted to know how the newly discovered DNA worked, she also needed sleep. May had been studying the DNA for so long that the sun had long since set behind her.

After sitting for as long as she had been, May stood and stretched in the cool night air outside of Israel. May walked around the Roach that was her old backrest, and laid down on the opposite side of where she had been sitting. Having no blanket, May relied on her Roach for any warmth she might need as she drifted off to sleep.

Night came and went, and May got as much sleep as possible. Her forces would be arriving shortly before sunset. Through the day, May was trying to figure out the odd DNA within her. It was so unlike the Zerg that she had a hard time wrapping her head around it. It had some sections that seemed familiar somehow, and other sections that she could not even begin to comprehend. With the Zerg, she could see a section of DNA and know immediately what it was for, but with this DNA, the opposite was true. Frustrated by the confusing DNA, she gave up...for now.

May returned to the conscious world and turned her face to the sun. She felt the warmth on her face and smiled. It was strange; she had expected this place to be extremely hot, but it was surprisingly cool. The air was dry, and May was used to the fairly high humidity of her homeland. With less moisture in the air in the Middle East, the ninety degree weather felt cooler than it normally would have in most of America. Although the air was cooler, the sun was hotter. Its effects seemed amplified in the acrid climate, and May figured that her Zerg DNA was the only thing that had kept her from getting sunburned.

She only had an hour until her invasion. Her Zerglings would have arrived hours ago, but May wanted all of her forces to arrive at the end same time, just in case something went wrong.

While May waited for her army, she began to plan the invasion. At first she wanted to surround the city and take it over, but she decided that there was no long term advantage that she could gain from holding a city without a Hatchery or Nydus Worm to provide reinforcements.

If she was not going to take the city, then she would need to concentrate her forces on breaking through the I.S.I.S. lines. With this in mind, she decided to use her forces like a spear. She ordered her army to change its formation. She kept the majority of her Zerglings in the front, and had the rest create a thin barrier around the Roaches and Hydralisks. Instead of lining up her forces like a massive wall, she shaped her advance to be like a spearhead with three layers. Hydralisks were at the core of the spearhead to provide covering fire. Roaches surrounded the Hydralisks with more in the front than the back; they were meant to shield the less armored Hydralisks. The Zerglings, due to their small size, expendability, and speed, were in the front to clear buildings and tight alleyways so that the Roaches and Hydralisks were free to deal with major threats.

The three layered triangle of Zerg swarmed over the horizon as they arranged themselves into May's desired formation. She could only see the front of her army because of the massive amount of dust they churned up. If she didn't know better, she would have thought that there was a dust storm coming...and an earthquake.

The thundering of hundreds of feet pounding over the dry arid land shook the ground. Likely, the soldiers within the city would feel her army's approach before seeing anything. She prepared her Roaches and got one last look of the city from the Overseer as her forces neared.

May quickly realized that she would not be able to keep up with her much larger underlings on foot. She considered trying to fly over her army, but it would leave her open to gunfire. Having no other choice, May climbed up onto the back of one of her Roaches. She held onto the few spines on the Roach's back as her Zerglings began swarming around her.

As soon as she was at the center of her spearhead formation, May ordered her Roach transport to run with the Hydralisks. Holding on was difficult, but she managed to quickly find a reletively stable psoition to ride in.

May had a hard time seeing through the dust that was being stirred by the Zerglings around her, but she continued with her swarm. As soon as her spearhead of Zerg began entering the city, her formation, for the most part, fell to pieces.

Her Zerglings swarmed through the largely empty streets. The triangle formation was almost entirely nonexistent, but the layers of Zergling, Roaches, and Hydralisks remained intact. At first, there was little resistance to the Zerg's arrival, for she mostly encountered civilians who were foolish enough to go outside in the middle of a warzone. She had to micromanage the Zerg at each encounter, quickly deciding who was and was not a threat. Luckily, no civilians were trampled by the massive stampede.

Several dozen enemy infantry, five armored fighting vehicles, and two more mobile artillery were taken out within a minute of charging through the city. The city was very large, and May's "small" army was not in a good position to do anything other than what May had already planned on. Breaking through to Israel.

May tried to keep her forces as contained as possible to minimize casualties. At most, her army covered a four to five block area, and May tried to keep it that way.

While keeping her formation tight, May monitored every human encounter through the eyes of her Zerglings. She wanted to make certain that no Israelis were attacked, but she had yet to came across any.

May and her forces continued through the city with little difficulty; any resistance was eliminated so quickly that, as far as May could tell, no alarms had been raised.

About halfway through the city, the swarm encountered a tank with about a dozen infantry around it. May immediately ordered the Zerglings to make room for the Roaches and Hydralisks. The tank didn't even have time to finish turning its gun towards the wave of Zerg before it, and the men around it, was doused with corrosive acid and shredded by one foot long, toxin covered, serrated spines.

By the time her swarm was nearing the side of the city that faced Israel, there was a significant amount of resistance. May could hear machine gun and tank fire ahead of her. The Zerg had finally reached the front lines.

Although May was near the combat area, the enemy had not yet been alerted of their presence. The buildings gradually became less frequent and several had a small amount of land between them.

Ahead, tanks and infantry could be seen fighting what May assumed to be the Israelis. The infantry were all near walls or barricades that lined the streets and buildings while the tanks sped around the battlefield, only stopping to shoot.

Although few in number, the Israeli military was far better trained, had far better equipment, and were far more motivated. If Israel lost, there would be no terms of surrender. Only genocide.

Several of the enemy soldiers saw May's swarm approaching and warned the others. These Saudi Arabians were not going to be taken by surprise like the ones before had. There were over a dozen tanks, and they all turned to face the thundering cloud of Zerg that churned dust into the air.

Then they fired. The explosions sent Zerglings flying and made Roaches stumble. Some got back up, but others did not. Luckily, none of the rounds reached the Hydralisks, and as soon as the Hydralisks were in range, they began shredding the tanks.

The Israeli soldiers, deciding to take advantage of whatever was distracting the Saudi Arabians, began to advance. With the Saudis distracted, the Israeli soldiers carefully began whittling away at them. Had they been able to see the monsters that were attacking the Saudi Arabians, they might have decided that the Zerg were their main threat. However, a cloud of dust had been kicked up by the tank fire and Zerg stampede preventing the Israelis from seeing what was attacking the Saudi Arabians.

The Saudi Arabian tanks prepared to fire a second volley of high explosive rounds into the murderous dust cloud that threatened to overtake them. Only half of the tanks that fired the first volley survived long enough to fire a second.

Machine gun fire cracked through the air, and explosions shook the earth as the second volley of tank rounds impacted the Zerg wave. The Zerglings reached the infantry as the Roaches came in range of the tanks, melting their armor and turning metal into sizzling puddles of acid. The third volley of tank fire never came, and fifteen tanks lay mangled, melted, and shredded on the battlefield. As the tanks were being destroyed by Roaches and Hydralisks, the Zerglings were tearing up the few infantry that remained in the area.

A massive dust cloud obscured the entire battlefield as all machine gun fire came to a halt. Although the distant cracks of machine gun fire and booms of armored vehicle fire could still be heard, the immediate vicinity was disturbingly quiet.

May ordered the Zerg army to a halt once all of the I.S.I.S. forces in the general area were annihilated. She dismounted her Roach and stepped towards the place that the I.S.I.S. troops had been shooting before her arrival.

She could not see much through the dust that had been raised by the fighting, so she was not exactly sure where the Israelis were. As the dust began to clear, she saw what used to be a suburban-like community covered in craters and destroyed buildings. She looked closer and saw that there were people behind the pieces of building using them as cover. There were also several tanks and armored fighting vehicles, but it looked like most of them were badly damaged and being used primarily as cover.

May looked behind her to find that her swarm was still blocked from view by the dust. Acting out of caution, she decided that it would be a good idea to keep her Swarm hidden until an alliance could be made. She had yet to even speak to an Israeli, and revealing the Zerg to the Israelis, or anyone else, was not something that she wanted to do until she was officially at war. Thus, May ordered all of her forces to burrow before the dust cleared, and she gave the order in time for the Zerg to remain unseen by the Israeli solders.

Then she realized that she must have been a strange sight. A military force was just wiped out, and once the dust cleared, only she could be seen. She chuckled to herself.

"Hello!" May shouted in Arabic as she waved her hand in the air, "I am May!"

"Where did you come from?" One of the Israelis asked with a yell, while he kept his rifle pointed at May.

"Back there."

May replied as she used her thumb to point behind her.

Several of the Israelis looked at her with suspicion.

"What killed the Saudis?" One of the Israelis asked.

"Something in the dust. I could barely see anything." May replied. She did not want to lie, but she did not want to tell the truth either.

"How did you get here, and where are you from? Your accent is Iranian, but you dress like an American."

"I was kidnapped from America, and learned Arabic since I have been here."

Several of the men began talking in Hebrew, and May could not understand them. After several moments, the man who spoke earlier motioned for her to come to them.

"Put your hands on top of your head and come to us."

May did as she was told and walked toward the Israelis. She noticed that all of the Israelis that she could see had their weapons pointed at her. When she came to about five yards away from the men, the man motioned for her to stop before he spoke again.

"Do you have any weapons on you?"

"No."

"Keep your hands on your head and come with me," The man said, "Intel says that the Jordanians will arrive soon to reinforce...what we thought was going to be the Saudi Arabians."

"Okay." May said as she cautiously approached the Israeli.

"I'm Noam. Do you have an I.D.?"

"Um," May had not seen her purse since she was kidnapped, "no."

"Why are you here?"

"I was kidnapped, but I escaped and walked here."

"Your name is May?"

May nodded.

Noam led May to a building some distance away from the front line and brought her inside. The two walked up to a man sitting at a beat up desk who Noam saluted. Noam and the man at the desk spoke in Hebrew, at least May assumed that it was Hebrew, for several moments before Noam saluted again and walked out.

"Put your hands down." The man at the desk commanded in Arabic.

May put her hands back down to her sides and stood awkwardly as the man scrutinized her.

"Are you thirsty?" The man seated at the desk asked. He was outfitted similarly to the soldiers, but he wore no helmet and his rifle was leaning against the desk instead of being slung over his shoulder.

"Um..." that was random, "no."

"You just escaped from I.S.I.S., walked through a desert and a city filled with Saudi Arabian and possibly Jordainian soldiers to the front lines of a war, and when you get here you aren't thirsty?"

"I took a canteen with me." May said as she twisted and pointed at the canteen tucked into the back of her pants.

The man sighed and rubbed his face. "How long have you been walking?"

May thought back on the last few days. "I was walking for about a day and a half, but I took a break yesterday and-"

"When was the last time you ate?" The man asked, cutting her off.

"I don't know when the last time I ate was," May replied with an attitude. "I was kidnapped, drugged, and woke up tied to a pole. How am I supposed to know how long I have been gone?"

The Israeli snarled slightly before looking down at the durable looking tablet on his desk and mumbling what sounded like "Americans."

May was not entirely sure how she had gone without eating for so long. The last time she ate anything was in America. Maybe Matilda would know.

"Matilda?"

She called in her mind.

"Yes, my... Yes?"

"Why am I not hungry?"

"There is biomass within you that is left over from your creation of the first Hatchery."

"Thanks."

That was not exactly something that she wanted to tell this guy. She wondered how long she could-

"Hey!" The Israeli said as he snaped his fingers in front of May's face. "Why were you kidnapped?" The man asked.

"Oh, sorry. Um...I was kidnapped because...I am not a...normal...person."

"My wife isn't normal, but she isn't wandering around a war zone. You didn't answer my question."

"I am not normal because I..." May paused and tried to think of a decent explaination.

The man, who clearly had lost patience, grumbled something before yelling something in Hebrew. A soldier walked through the door moments later and saluted. The man at the desk gave him some orders in Hebrew before turning his head back to May.

"Follow this man." The man said impatiently.

The soldier turned to leave, and May followed. As she exited the room, she took one last look at the ill tempered Israeli. Only then did she notice the dark circles under his eyes. He looked tired.

The Israeli soldier took May to a Humvee and told her to wait before he walked off. Several minutes later, another Israeli solder walked up to her.

"T'h May?" He said as he approached her. She could tell by his tone that he was asking her a question, but she was not sure what "T'h" was supposed to mean.

"I am May." She said in Arabic.

The newly arrived soldier said something to her in Hebrew while he motioned for her to get into the Humvee.

May got in the passenger seat, and the soldier got in to drive. He started the Humvee and drove off.

"Are we going to Jerusalem?" May asked as the front lines of the war slowly disappeared behind her.

"Tel Aviv." was all that the man said.

May assumed that she was going to Jerusalem and settled into the uncomfortable seat. After watching the lanscape became boring, she decided to look over her Swarm.

Matilda had been busy in Broodland. There were several new Extractors and a new Hatchery. A Spire was on the way, and her Lair was evolving into a Hive. Surprisingly, the forces that May took from Broodland had already been replaced. She knew that the Zerg were efficient, but this was amazing. It seemed that the Zerg grew at an exponential rate, the bigger they became, the faster they grew.

May was dissapointed to find that her American Lair had been destroyed shortly after the Nydus Worm from Broodland surfaced. The Nydus Worm had also been killed after Matilda escaped through it. All traces of the Zerg presence in America had been erased as far as May could tell.

May looked over her forces burrowed on the battlefield that she had just left behind. Thankfully, the Jordanian reinforcements had not yet arrived. May wanted to move her forces to a better location, but she did not want to reveal anything to the Israelis just yet. They would see more action soon if May had anything to say about it.

May considered ordering an increase in Roach production. Their tunneling ability would soon become invaluable to the Zerg once she became fully involved in the war. However, because she was not yet at war, she decided that it would be better to grow the Swarm economically until the war began. If her theory on the way the Swarm grew was correct, she would be better off in the long run this way.

Thus, May ordered Matilda to morph Hatcheries and technology structures until otherwise instructed. She also ordered Matilda to prepare thirty Nydus Worms and send them to the borders of Israel. However, she had the Nydus Worms wait a couple of miles beneath the ground instead of surfacing immediately. That way she could quickly deploy her forces anywhere once the Swarm was ready.

After she finished managing the Zerg, her thoughts drifted to what the Israeli soldiers she had just left behind might be thinking of the situation. From their point of view, the forces the they were engaging had been wiped out by something in a dust cloud, and when the cloud cleared, only May was left. Imagining what they must have thought happened made her smile.

For the remainder of the trip, May telepathically discussed what should be done next with Matilda. They decided to keep the Zerg a secret as long as possible. May figured that revealing a race of incredibly dangerous creatures that were controlled by a single person could not be safely done alone. They needed someone important to represent them to the world. Israel needed help in a war. They decided that her best option would be to make a deal with Israel by trading military support for political support.

* * *

 **A whole week between posts. :( Sorry guys. My brother is getting married Friday, and...nevermind, y'all have lives of your own to worry about.**

 **So...I figured that if the Zerg are going to be a nation, then they are going to need an awesome flag right? Well, I have created seven potential flags for the Zerg and posted them on DeviantArt under the name "bcpowerhouse." If you search for my name in DeviantArt, then all seven flags should show up. Let me know which one(s) you like by either reviewing or sending me a PM.**

 **If you like flags as much as I do, and want to send me a flag that you've made...I am not sure how you would do that. I don't think that FanFiction permits people to send links that lead to somewhere other than FanFiction. Maybe you could post them on DeviantArt and PM me your DeviantArt username. I am not entirely sure.**

 **A few of the flags are based on Israel's flag, and one of those is VERY similar to the flag that Israel's air force uses. (The flag labeled "Monarchy of the Zerg" is** **probably my LEAST favorite if that means anything to you.)**

 **Yeah, I probably could have gotten this out sooner if I had not done the whole flags thing, but after taking up Vexillology as a bit of a hobby...I couldn't resist. If you knew what that meant without using Google, then you probably like flags too! (Or you saw the TedTalk about flags)**

 **I plan on making whatever flag you guys choose the new coverpicture for this story. The current coverpicture I am using was not made by me. In fact, I am not entirely sure when I put it on my computer. It has been sitting in my pictures folder for who knows how long, and I probably should not have it there to begin with because I cannot give credit to whoever made it.**

 **If you guys see any other errors that I have made, or if y'all are confused by the wording of some things, please let me know. "** **There is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers except by letting men understand that you will not be offended if they tell you the truth." - Niccolo Machiavelli**

 **Thanks for reading, and have a fantastic day!**


	10. Chapter 10

May rode with the Israeli in silence that was only broken once they reached a large city.

"Tel Aviv." The solder said pointing to the city.

"Wait. Isn't Jerusalem the capital? I need to go to Jerusalem." May replied in English even though she figured that he would not understand.

"Tel Aviv." He said again.

Switching to Arabic, May stated her concerns again.

"I need to go to Jerusalem. Je-ru-sa-lem." She said Jerusalem slowly the second time to make sure that the man understood.

"Tel A-viv." He retorted slowly.

May huffed, turned away, and crossed her arms. The soldier just chuckled to himself. It seemed that the man really wanted her in Tel Aviv.

The city was certainly not like the battle-torn city she had been in only hours ago. This city was bustling with life, and surprisingly normal. May had not been sure what to expect from Tel Aviv, but she was surprised by what she saw. It was familiar in that it had the feel of a large city; large skyscrapers, highways, and bridges contrasted strongly with the somewhat acrid landscape she had been seeing in the Middle East.

The signs and billboards was the most unfamiliar thing about the city. In America, all of the signs were in English, and English only. Here, the signs were all in three languages. Arabic, English, and what May assumed to be Hebrew.

The second thing that struck May as being odd was the way everyone drove. People were constantly changing lanes and trying to get ahead. What would have been called rude, extremely dangerous, reckless, or downright crazy seemed to be normal. May wondered at how nobody had wrecked in she few minutes she had been in the city.

As May marveled at Tel Aviv, the soldier quietly drove through the city. She did not stop to question or wonder what was so important about Tel Aviv that she would be brought here, for she was too preoccupied with the sight of the city to care. It was all so new to her that she wanted to remember everything that she saw.

After several minutes of driving on highways, the soldier took an exit ramp onto a much narrower road. The large vehicle took up two lanes of traffic, and it made May uncomfortable to be riding in such a large vehicle in the middle of the city.

May noticed that the city looked like it simply ended a little ways to her right. There was a line of buildings next to the street, but behind those buildings, there was nothing. May tried to find out why this was the case, but there was always something in the way.

As May was searching the area to the right, a small break in the buildings and decorative greenery revealed what was preventing buildings from being built. The Mediterranean sea.

May's eyes widened as she took in the brief glimpse of the endless expanse of water. The sunlight sparkled in the bluish green water, and the waves placidly broke against the sand. May spent the remainder of the trip trying to get glimpses of the beach.

Suddenly, the Humvee turned away from the beech, and May broke her gaze to give a sour look to the soldier. Although May knew that the soldier was just following orders, she was slightly upset at him for taking her away from the beach.

May shook herself out of her selfish stupor. She was here for political purposes, not to lounge on the beach. It was at this point that May began to wonder where she was being taken. She had passed many hotels that she assumed were for built tourists, but she had not seen any buildings that pertained to her situation.

The soldier turned off of the road and parked the Humvee in the middle of two parking spaces in a small parking lot. He pointed across the street to a nondescript light tan building that stood seven or eight stories tall. May looked through the Humvee's window at the building. Confused, she turned back to look at the soldier who made a shooing motion at her and pointed at the building again. She gave in, but made sure the soldier caught her eye roll before she got out.

May closed the door behind her once she got out. As she looked up at the building, the Humvee backed out of its parking space and drove away.

The front of the building jutted out above the first story and was supported by pillars, leaving a shady area just in front of the front doors. Behind the building was open water: on the outer wall of the middle of the second story, just after the pillars ended, was a large seal and English words below it. The seal had an eagle on it. The eagle held a branch in its left claws and a bundle of arrows in its right. The words under the seal read "EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA."

May's face turned into a frown. An American embassy was not where she needed to be at all. As May began to think of a place to go to negotiate, it struck her that even if the was in Jerusalem, she wouldn't know who she needed to talk to about this war.

Even if she did speak to someone important in Israel's government, it would take a miracle for them to listen. She could easily imagine the conversation.

 _"Hi, I am May and I have control over a race of giant bugs, and I want to help you fight a war. What do you think?"_

 _Then the person would bust out laughing._

There had to be a way of getting someone to take her seriously. What would be best for the swarm? Not letting anyone know about their existence. What would be best for her? Not letting anyone know that she led the Zerg. It would be nearly impossible to hide the Zerg during a war, and she needed to contact someone in the Israeli government to let them know that the Zerg were willing to help in the war. But who would take her claims seriously? May huffed. There was no simple solution.

Frustrated, May began walking towards the beach and away from the embassy. She began looking through her DNA again, as it had become a habit, and was struck with an idea. If she could modify her own DNA, maybe she could make herself look like a Zerg. That way she could get people's attention and not get recognized for who she really was.

Excited about this, May began searching for a safe place to mutate. In front of her was a beach, and behind her was a huge city. May searched. She made her way to the beach, and turned right to walk along the beach.

After about an hour of walking, May saw a marina ahead of her with a long curved piece of land wrapping around the side near her. The outcrop of land kept the waves from knocking the boats around, and it looked like almost nobody went there on foot. It was far from secluded, but it was better than the middle of the beach or the open streets. She did not know how long her transformation would take, and decided to wait until dark to begin.

In the meantime, May sat on the edge of the beach and began forming ideas about her new Zerg self. What did she want to look like? Humanoid or something else entirely? Big and bulky or small and graceful? Whatever she ended up looking like, she wanted to be graceful.

Unfortunately, little about the Zerg exhibited grace. She wanted wings, that was for sure; there was nothing like flying. Mutalisk DNA would be needed then, but only the wing portion. She did not want to be stuck to the skies all of the time, but she also wanted somewhat normal legs. Zergling DNA would help with that. She did not want to be as small as a Zergling though, so Ultralisk DNA would counter the Zergling DNA and also provide extra armor. Armor...Roach DNA could really help with armor. Might as well add some Roach DNA for armor as well. Hydralisk DNA would improve her reflexes which would be helpful if she ever had to fight.

May began work on her design. Of course, some of the DNA strands she wanted were not compatible with other strands, and she had to eliminate the Roach DNA from her plan. She spent the rest of the day refining her work into something less like a Zerg and more like something more familiar.

Once night came, May had completed her design. She was not sure if it was permitted for her to go to the end of the barrier that protected the marina from waves, so she tried to remain as hidden as possible as she made her way there. She slumped over and ran to the marina's edge. Then she hurried to the end of the wave breaker. Once there, she mixed the DNA of the creature she had created with her own DNA. Immediately, a chrysalis began forming around her. After a couple of seconds, the edges of the chrysalis met above her and the encasement began filling with liquid. May took a deep breath as the liquid rose around her shoulders, and as the chrysalis was filled, May fell into unconsciousness.

Meanwhile, a thoroughly creeped out man was making a phone call from a hotel balcony overlooking the marina.

* * *

"I just received a tip about a disturbance on the marina breakwater." Alerted dispatch over the radio.

Having just started his graveyard shift, the officer let dispatch know that he was on his way to check it out.

A few minutes later, he arrived at the marina and parked his car. Getting out, he looked to the sky. The majority of the moon was blacked out. It was probably going to be a slow night. Nights with full moons were often the most exciting. Full moons seemed to bring out the crazy in people.

He sighed and closed the car door with one hand while pulling the flashlight from his belt with the other. He turned his light on and began walking out toward the beach as the waves quietly lapped at the sand. Looking around, he found that nobody was at the marina at all. He decided to check out the breakwater as that was where the disturbance was reported to be.

As he walked toward the end of the breakwater, something caught his attention. It was an object that looked different than the rocks around it. He approached the object and noted that it was slightly taller than he was and it looked sort of like a giant green and brown egg. He looked around him to make sure there were no people on the breakwater with him.

The officer put his hand against the surface; it was extremely smooth. He placed his flashlight against the side of the egg to try to see inside, and he thought he saw something within. He stepped away from the egg and returned to his patrol car.

Once inside his car, the officer grabbed the microphone for his radio.

"Dispatch, I think that I will need a second set of eyes on the...disturbance on the marina breakwater."

"I will send the next available unit." Came the reply.

Within a few minutes, another patrol car came to the marina. After new policeman surveyed the situation, a supervisor was requested and the marina owner was called.

Within a couple of hours, there were seven police officers, the marina owner, and a local reporter all trying to figure out where the giant egg came from, what was inside it, and why it was at the marina.

* * *

"John Dillinger, call 501 please. John Dillinger, 501."

John was just about finished with his shift at Saver's Choice grocery store when the lady on the intercom paged him. The call was coming from somewhere outside of the store; all calls not coming from the store started in 50 and ended, more often than not, in 1.

John had been suspended from work at the FBI until the investigation into May Flowers' disappearance was complete. What job he would be assigned after the investigation was over depended on its results. However, the investigation could take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a several months. Thus, the new job at Saver's Choice.

John kept telling himself that he was lucky to have a job at all and that stocking shelves was not so bad. Although true, he knew that his self encouragement would only covered the fact that he missed his old job. Stocking shelves was far from the worst job he could have ended up with, but it just was not very interesting compared to the interesting environment of the FBI.

John stopped what he was doing and made his way to the nearest store phone. Once he reached the phone in the back room, he dialed 501 and brought the phone to his ear.

"Thank you for calling Saver's Choice. My name is John. How may I help you?"

"Dillinger, this is Ledgett. We need you back. There is a situation. Come to headquarters immediately. You will be briefed there."

The line on the other end clicked and the dial tone began to sound. John hung up the phone and smiled before hurrying to the time clock to clock out early.

* * *

 **I had a couple hours of free time in-between classes, so I worked on editing this. Anyway, I hope y'all enjoyed it!**

 **I am going to wait for a few chapters before a flag is chosen, so...yeah.**

 **Thanks Arachnodon! I will probably be able to use that several times later on!**

 **, I really wanted to do that, but I used an online flag making utility with pre-made shapes. I do not have the skill to draw the Zerg symbol on paper or on a computer. I am far from an artist. If I could do that, I would.**


	11. Chapter 11

**At some point, I will have the American president involved in the story. I have a poll up on my profile, so go there and vote for the American president! No citizenship required!**

* * *

"What do you make of this?" Ledgett asked as soon as John entered his old boss's office.

Ledgett was pointing to a picture that sat on the Oak desk and was among piles of paperwork and files. John walked up to the desk and picked up the picture to get a good look at it as he sat down.

The picture was of a large egg. A large Zerg egg. It was on what looked like a rocky shoreline next to the ocean, but that did not make sense. As far as anyone knew, the Zerg had never been to an ocean or any large body of water.

"Where is this?" John asked.

"Tel Aviv, Israel. Three hours ago."

"Israel?" Now John was really confused. "How would a Zerg egg end up in Israel?"

"I don't know, but I need you to find out."

"Why me?"

"Because you have more experience with the Zerg than anyone, and you aren't an active agent. Do you want to go to Israel?"

"You want me to go to a country that is at war with countries twenty times its size and investigate a mysterious egg that may contain an extremely deadly creature?" He paused and thought about his options. "Sounds a lot more fun than what I was doing. I'm in."

"Good! I was worried that I would have to find someone else. Now, I can't give you your gun and badge back, and I won't be the one paying you."

"Why not? Who will be paying me?"

"Because you aren't an active agent! You have been suspended and you are using your time off to see the beautiful beaches of Tel Aviv. You will stumble across a strange egg on the Tel Aviv Marina, and the Department of Defense will give you money in return for an eye witness account of what you see."

John slowly replied. "Riiight."

"Oh, I almost forgot." Ledgett said as he began shuffling through the clutter on his desk. "Ah, here we are. A ticket and boarding pass to Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. It's thirteen hours, so bring a pillow." He held out the ticket with a proud demeanor.

"Okay." John said as he took the pieces of paper and looked at them.

"You should get packing. Your flight leaves in three hours."

John looked up in horror.

"What? It took me longer than I thought it would to contact you. You wouldn't answer your cell phone."

John recomposed himself. "You're crazy." Was all he said before he rushed out of the office.

"You just now figuring that out Dillinger?" He heard Ledgett calling from the office as he made his way to the elevator.

* * *

John sat in the window seat just over the wing of the Airbus as it took off. He had barely made it to the terminal in time, and would have missed the flight if anything had gone wrong. Thankfully, the whole process had gone relatively smoothly and surprisingly quickly.

He didn't have time to pack much in the way of clothes or entertainment or...anything at all. He had an extra change of clothes, but he was still wearing his Saver's Choice uniform and would be changing into his normal clothes as soon as possible.

John spent the next thirteen hours eating okay-ish airplane food and trying to get as much restless sleep as he could. He had changed clothes in the bathroom once the plane finished ascending from takeoff. It was no small feat either. The bathroom was as small as a portable restroom, and the toilet took up half of the room.

* * *

John finally made it to Tel Aviv. He did not have to wait for his luggage when he exited the plane, for all he had was a backpack that now had his Saver's Choice uniform inside it.

After changing all of his American Dollars to Israeli Shekels, John checked his phone. It was 5:35 P.M. local time. Almost twenty hours after the egg was discovered. He connected to the airport Wi-Fi and mapped out a route to the Tel Aviv marina. It would take about forty five minutes by car or fifty minutes on foot. He was not sure of how long he would be in Israel or of how much a taxi would cost. Thus, he decided to walk.

About an hour later, John arrived at the marina. The breakwater that the egg was on was blocked off by police, and there was a group of people standing near the barrier. The egg was clearly visible in the afternoon sun. In fact, it looked much larger in real life than it had in the picture. In the picture, it looked to be about seven feet tall, but here it looked closer to thirteen or fourteen feet tall.

John looked down at his watch. It was 6:30. Twenty one hours after the FBI were notified about the egg. He knew from his experience with the Lair in America, Zerglings took about seventeen hours to hatch from a larvae. The result was a pair of nightmare-twin monsters. What could be growing within an egg that has been growing for twenty one hours? Better yet, how long would it be before it hatched?

John watched the egg for quite some time before deciding to find a hotel to stay at. He found a room on the second floor of a hotel that bordered the beach. He could even see the egg from his balcony, or at least he would be able to if he had a very good pair of binoculars. The view and hotel were great, and cost was amazing: nearly 200 shekels per night or just over $50. The hotel was clearly for tourists, and the war had run most people off. The regular price per night would have been about four times that he paid.

* * *

May woke. She was stiff all over, and cramped in a small space. A very small space. Her head was tucked under her wing, and, for the most part, she could not move. She knew that she was in her egg, and acted accordingly. She began trying to scratch her way out of the egg with her fingernails; fingernails that she found to be more like claws. It was a very slow process due to her extremely limited movement, but after a few minutes she managed to break through the egg shell with one of her claws.

Through the process, she learned a little bit about her physical makeup. She no longer had hands. In fact, she no longer had arms either. Instead, she had talons like a bird that were on the ends of two front legs. At the end of her front legs, three slightly webbed claws faced foreword while one claw acted similarly to a thumb and faced backward. She continued to claw at the shell until she could fit her front right talon through. She continued to break away pieces of shell, and as she did, she gained room to use leverage to more easily break away the shell.

Several more minutes later, she had broken enough of her shell to fit her right wing through the hole. Her head was still tucked away under her left wing, so she still could not see anything. She was far to focused on getting out of her tiny home to notice the muffled and alarmed voices coming from outside of her shell.

She continued her work on the shell until her back right leg was free. She began feeling around with it, and found that it was, like her front leg, a talon with four claws; three claws were in the front, while one was in the back.

After what felt like an eternity, she managed to open a large enough hole in the egg to pull her head from under her left wing. Unfortunately, when she did, her center of mass moved from inside the egg to outside of the egg. She began to fall out, and when she tried to catch herself, she slipped on an algae covered rock. She floundered to catch herself as she tumbled into a bunch of water. Disoriented and waterlogged, May managed to scramble back to the rocky shore.

Now breathing heavily from both her tedious exertion from escaping the egg and the sudden exertion of escaping the sea, May lay on the rocks for several moments with her eyes closed.

Remembering what she wanted herself to look like before she entered the egg, May turned her head to get a good look at herself. She was big. Not fat, but large overall. She had thick armor all over her body, and it was all a medium brown color. Her wings came out of her back just behind her shoulder blades, and bone-like spines protruded vertically from her spine from the base of her neck to the end of her tail. She smiled. It had worked.

Before she began her transformation, she decided that she needed to look like something people would recognize. She decided on a dragon, and modeled herself after that. Now she looked like a skinnier, more graceful version of Draco from Dragonheart, one of her favorite movies.

Proud of herself, May began examining herself more closely and discovered a red spot on her right side. It was to bright to be blood, and it seemed to glow. She licked at it, but it did not go away. Confused, May turned her head to see if a similar spot was on her left side, but nothing was there. She turned back to her right side and noticed that the red dot moved on its own. A laser.

May watched its movement and shape to figure out its origin. She looked to where she thought the laser would be and saw a tall building that looked to be about sixteen stories tall. It was far enough away that May would normally need binoculars to see where the laser came from, but with her improved vision, May could easily see the sniper-spotter team on the roof of the building.

It seemed that she had gotten the attention that she had wanted, so she decided to make the best of it. She began to take in her surroundings instead of her own appearance. There were a line of what looked like police about thirty yards away in the direction of the shore. Each officer had his/her weapon drawn and aimed at her. Behind the police officers, at the edge of the shore stood another line of people. Each person had his/her camera out and pointed towards her.

The Zerg was going to become very public very soon.

May looked once again to the line of police officers. Without looking away, she climbed the breakwater until the ground was level beneath her. Then she turned to face them head on. The laser now pointed at her chest.

May figured

that standing around would not help anyone, and addressed the far away police.

"I have heard that Israel is in need of allies. My people are in a similar situation, and we have a common enemy." She loudly said in Arabic. "I would like to make an agreement with this nation."

Nobody spoke. Nobody even breathed. The only sounds that broke the silence were either coming from the city or from the waves breaking on the beach. The silence dragged on for almost a minute before May spoke again.

"Does anybody here speak Arabic?" She asked in Arabic. No response. "How about English? Does anyone speak English?" She asked in English. Again, no response.

"Look, if you want help in fighting I.S.I.S., then somebody needs to start talking."

A man holding a megaphone approached the police line. Once he reached the line, he hesitantly raised the megaphone and began speaking in Arabic.

"What are you?"

"That is a very good question." May paused. "I suppose that I am a dragon."

The man thought for a moment.

"Where did you come from?"

With her head, May gestured toward the egg behind her.

"That egg."

Again, he took a moment to think.

"How could you help us fight I.S.I.S.?\

"By providing an army, but I will want something in return."

The man paused to think again.

"Wait here for a moment. I don't think that I can speak for Israel."

The man then turned around and walked back to the beach where he was greeted by dozens of reporters begging for an interview.

May sighed and began taking everything in. It was dark out, and the Mediterranean Sea behind her blended into the night sky, making the horizon difficult to spot. In front of her, Tel Aviv was lit up along the beach by tall buildings that she assumed were hotels. A few people were looking out their windows to try to get a good view of her. At the edge of the beach where the breakwater began, was the group of reporters.

They were all moving around trying to get a better shot of her, and several were standing with their backs facing her while speaking to the camera. Almost everyone in that area was doing something to get a better view. Almost. There was a lone man standing away from the rest. He simply stood and stared. He appeared to be thinking deeply. She extended her long neck into the air in an attempt to get a better view of the man's face. He seemed familiar, but she could not get a good enough look at him to be able to recognize him. The dark night and the distance combined with the heavy backlight coming from Tel Aviv obscured the man's face.

"Erhem."

Someone cleared their throat. The sound, coming from the police line, snapped May back into the moment. Looking to the police line, she found a new man holding the megaphone.

"Hello." She replied.

"What's your name?"

"I haven't been named yet. Call me dragon."

Of course she could have given the man her real name, but she did not want to be on the news as May Flowers. She wanted to live a normal life outside of the Swarm, and decided that having one identity for the leader of the Zerg and one for her normal self would be better in the long run.

"Okay...dragon...what do you want with Israel?"

"I want the Zerg to be independent, and I think that Israel can help me. I also know that I can help Israel. I want to trade."

"I think that we need to discuss this somewhere private."

"I am a dragon. Even if you do find a place that we can talk in private, how do you plan on getting me there?"

"A place has been found already. Can you fly?"

May extended her wings and looked them over. She had been able to get off of the ground as a human, but she was not sure how difficult flying would be as a dragon. "I can try."

"If you can, then helicopters are on their way to escort you."

"What do you want me to do until then?"

"Just wait."

"Okay."

The man then moved the megaphone to his side and began to turn away. As May waited for the helicopters, she looked back to the lone man who stood away from everyone. His face was as obscured as before, and she still could not recognize him.

Several minutes passed before May heard a chopping sound coming from the city. It grew louder and louder until two helicopters appeared over the tall buildings.

"Follow the helicopter with the blinking light."

She heard someone say over the megaphone.

She nodded her head exaggeratedly to let the person know that she understood.

The two helicopters were very different. One was small and looked like it could fit a maximum of two people in it, including the pilot. It had a clear rounded window that covered the front and gave the pilot a large field of vision. The window also gave the helicopter's body a bubble-like shape.

The other helicopter was much larger, and looked like it might be able to hold two people, but May couldn't tell. It had a narrower but more sturdy looking body. On either side of the body were two, approximately one yard long, arms that stuck out level with the ground. On the arms were two miniguns, and what May assumed to be a rocket launcher.

Of course, the bubble shaped helicopter had the blinking light on it. May began flapping her wings as the two helicopters hovered above her. May leapt into the air with all her might as she flapped her wings. As soon and she was airborne, the helicopter with the blinking light began to drift away from her.

At first, May had trouble staying airborne. She found it difficult to fly at slow speeds, but as the helicopter in front of her picked up pace, flying became easier.

May found that she could glide easily without flapping her wings, something that was far more difficult in her human form. She ended up going at a comfortable pace headed to the North. May always kept an eye behind her, as the weaponized helicopter followed at a distance.

The brightly lit city to her right gradually transformed into a dark countryside as she followed the helicopter. The ease of flying as a dragon caused May to enjoy it much more.

Unfortunately, her flight was not as long as she would have liked, for the lead helicopter began descending toward a large warehouse several miles outside of Tel Aviv.

The leading helicopter landed on the ground about twenty yards away from the front to the warehouse, while the heavily armed trailing helicopter began circling the area. May landed far enough away from the grounded helicopter for there to be no risk of her wings hitting the spinning blades as they began winding down.

The area was well lit, and everything could be clearly seen, even for the average person.

Around her were about a dozen soldiers. None of them were pointing their weapons at her, but all of them looked ready to kill.

"Wait here until you are instructed otherwise." A voice to her left shouted over the sound of the slowing blades of the helicopter.

She turned to see who spoke, and saw a soldier standing between her and the helicopter.

She did not like waiting. She decided to check on her swarm, for she had not done so since she hatched.

"Matilda, how are we doing today?"

"We have twenty one Hatcheries that will be complete within twenty four hours, a Greater Spire, and an Ultralisk cavern. The swarm is at maximum efficiency."

"Good. I do like an efficient swarm. When the new Hatcheries are finished, begin production of Mutalisks and Scourges; I want two hundred Mutalisks and four hundred Scourges. I also want one hundred Ultralisks. Once you finish that, I want three hundred Lurkers and fifty Brood Lords. Got that?"

"Yes, my queen."

"I have told you not to call me that."

"I know."

"Then why do you?"

"Because it is the truth."

"It just makes me feel uncomfortable when you speak to me like I am...a...queen. I just don't like it."

"Is there something else I should call you?"

"Just call me May."

"That is an unusual thing to call you."

"It's my name."

"I did not know."

"I never told you my name?"

"No."

That was odd. She never told Matilda her name, yet she spoke to her daily. How could she forget to tell Matilda her name?

"Sorry. I guess I never thought I needed to tell you."

"There is no need to apologize May. Names mean little to me."

May chuckled.

"You made that quite clear."

Their mental conversation went silent for several moments.

"What do you plan to do next May?"

"If the Israelis accept our help, then we will prepare to defend Israel and invade the I.S.I.S. nations."

"In what way does assisting Israel benefit the swarm?"

"We need someone to support us publicly, and we need to prove ourselves to the world without creating panic. If we were to attack I.S.I.S. without anyone knowing why, then people would be afraid that they would be attacked next."

"Why do we need the world to be unafraid of us? If they are afraid of us, wouldn't they be afraid of attacking us? If the swarm is unchallenged, can we not grow faster?"

Matilda must have been in a very curious mood.

"People are often more dangerous and unpredictable when they feel threatened or afraid. If they fear us, they will unite to destroy us. If we are the common enemy of the world, then we will be attacked from all sides by forces that even the swarm cannot hold back."

"So we ally ourselves with Israel to keep the rest of the world calm and peaceful?"

"Exactly." May replied, thankful that Matilda was showing potential.

"What will the swarm do after Israel is secure?"

"Right now, we don't know how people will react to our existence, but as we fight alongside Israel, we will be able to judge the reactions of the world. The way that they react to us will determine the way we react to their reaction.

"I see. So, there is not enough information to make a decision right now?"

"Yes and no." May replied.

"I do not understand."

"Although we don't know how the world will react to our revelation, we can formulate ideas

on how we should respond to various outcomes. If we sit idle and observe, we will constantly be forced to play catch-up. We must anticipate the possible reactions of the world and formulate ways to respond to these possible outcomes.

May continued. "If we find that the world hates us, we need to act differently from how we would act if they embraced us."

Matilda thought for a moment before replying. "What then should we do if the world seeks to destroy us?"

"That depends." May replied.

"On what does it depend?" Matilda asked.

As May and Matilda continued their conversation, they drifted into the world of politics, economics, deception, diplomacy, and corruption. Together, they addressed many of the possible outcomes of the Zerg's revelation to the world.

Some outcomes resulted in World War III, and others resulted in world peace. In-between the two extremes was where the majority of the outcomes ended up.

Matilda had no concept of what was and was not outside of the realm of reason, and did not fully understand why some of here suggestions were not sensible. In spite of Matilda's relative ignorance, May was proud of her. She had a thirst for knowledge that rivaled May's own.

* * *

 **Special thanks to for helping me create two more flags! When I pictured the flag you suggested, it seemed like a great idea, but when I tried to creat it, I could not get it to look the way I think that you wanted it. :( However, I did create two more flags with your help! They are now with the other flags on DeviantArt Thanks dude!**

 **On a different note, I am thinking of making the next chapter into the full conversation between May and Matilda near the end of this chapter. They will continue their discussion of what could be, what people may do, and how the swarm could respond. If you guys want to see the full conversation, let me know! However, if you do not want me to waste time on a conversation that will not advance the story, then let me know that also!**

 **BTW, if I do post the conversation as the next chapter, you will not have to read it to understand anything later on. The conversation will simply be a series of "what ifs" and then ways that the Zerg could respond to the "what ifs."**

 **As always, thanks for reviewing! If I was unclear about anything in this story so far, PLEASE tell me! What good is a story if it doesn't make sense, right?**


	12. Chapter 12

"What then should we do if the world seeks to destroy us?" Matilda asked.

"That depends." May replied.

"On what does it depend?" Matilda asked.

"Primarily, it depends on the condition of the swarm when we realize that the whole world is against us." May explained. "If we are weak, we must appear strong, but if we are strong, then we must appear weak. The only alternative to this is to flee beyond the reach of humanity."

"Why must we appear to be what we are not? Would it not benefit us to always appear to be unassailable?"

"Not if we are strong. If we are strong, but appear to be weak, then we have the freedom to attack our enemies in ways that will be unexpected. You wouldn't expect a dying man to be able to fight, but if he only appears to be dying, then his opponent will underestimate his strength and become careless. A careless enemy already has one foot in the grave."

"I see. You are saying that we must then hide our strength until we use it?"

"Right." May replied.

"Then why have we agreed to help Israel? Are we not strong now?"

"We are becoming strong, but we are not strong yet. Until we are strong, we must appear to be strong so as to use the uncertainty of our enemies to our advantage. Nobody knows what we can do, and nobody will attack us until they do. By the time the enemy figures out how to fight us, we will have grown strong enough to crush them. After they are defeated, we will appear to have been crippled by the war effort so as to appear weak."

"And by appearing weak, we will fool the world into ignoring us as a threat?" Matilda asked.

"Right."

Matilda mulled over the conversation as May waited to see if her Queen had more questions.

After several seconds of thought, Matilda spoke again. "What if the world sees through our lies? Can they not see from the skies as we can?"

At first, May did not think much of Matilda's question, but after a moment's thought, she realized just how detrimental such a situation would be. Deception is useless if no-one is deceived.

May began "voicing" her thoughts to Matilda in an attempt to fully examine the situation. "If the world knows that we are strong while we try to appear weak, then they will know...too much. They would probably know fast we can grow, the strength of our forces, and how large our military is...everything that matters."

May sighed as she tried to process her options.

"I guess that we would be forced to hide a small base somewhere for just in case..." May trailed off. "If we had a Leviathan, then we could just go to space. If we do that though, they will know that we are still..." May trailed off again. "We could hide in a jungle somewhere. Maybe the trees would provide some cover from satellites."

May gradually became frustrated.

"Could the Zerg survive underwater?" May asked.

"We can survive anywhere with the right DNA."

"Then that would be a decent option. We could go deep enough underwater to hide from the satellites, and a physical search would be nearly impossible."

"Where would we go from there?" Matilda asked.

"I don't know." May replied with a slightly defeated tone. "It depends on the size of our forces, the environment we settle, the aggressiveness of the world, the political environment at the time...it is nearly impossible to predict what could happen."

"What if we are seen to be weak right now?" Matilda asked, realising the extreme unpredictability of the situation that she had presented.

"That could be bad, but it might not matter."

"Why would it not matter if the world sees through out deception now if it would matter later on?"

"Because only our enemies would want to nip our growth in the bud. We have only made enemies of I.S.I.S., and they don't have the technology to launch a full scale invasion of a place as dangerous for humans as Antarctica. We would need to be more careful with our actions, but we would not face immediate destruction."

"I see."

May waited for several moments to see if she had appeased Matilda's appetite for information. She had not.

"What would we do if the world were divided after the war with I.S.I.S.? If some of the world allied themselves with us and others allied against us, what would we do?"

It did not take May long to come up with an answer. "We would try to stir up as little trouble as possible. A global war would cause instability that would keep us from being able to plan ahead. We would try to get the world on our side through trade and politics."

"What if the entire world accepted us?" Matilda asked.

"I don't think that we need to be concerned bout that. Someone will have a reason to want to destroy us."

"But if it were to happen, what would we do?"

May had not considered a world where everyone got along, but to entertain Matilda's question, she began to do so.

"I would want everyone to know what we are. I would want people to be unafraid." May mused. "Maybe we could have a Zerg museum somewhere. And we could have Queens giving tours! And we could hire some people to do tours as well! That way I could hire myself and work with you as a human!

"Or," May continued, "I could be a reporter who covers anything that has to do with the Zerg! That way I could be free to do whatever I want! If we had a Leviathan, we could give space tours or something. We could create a business out of it!

"Matilda?" May asked as she began to slow down.

"Yes?" Matilda replied.

"I doubt that we will get that lucky."

"But is it not a possibility that we should prepare for?"

"If you prepare for the worst, then you will be prepared for anything. World War III is what we need to prepare for."

"Should I begin preparations?" Matilda asked.

May formulated a plan. "Eventually we will want a Leviathan, but for now, we can begin processing fish DNA."

"It will be done." May felt Matilda turn her focus to the swarm.

May smiled. Her orders had been vague, but Matilda seemed to understand what needed to be done.

* * *

 **Yes, this a short chapter. Yes, I haven't posted in a while.**

 **Don't worry though, I should have the next chapter out soon!**

 **To almost everyone who reviewed the previous chapter who asked "Why a dragon? That is odd."**

 **There are three answers. Two short ones and a long one.**

 **Short answer 1. I did not want to turn May into a Queen of Blades clone, but I needed to change her into something that was unrecognizable to anyone who knew her (aka the Americans). Changing her into a Queen seemed boring, and I wanted her to be something familiar to you guys to keep from describing an entirely new creature. I had the idea for a dragon, and I never came up with a better one.**

 **Short answer 2. When I picture a dragon, I picture an unstoppable force with unmatched capabilities for destruction. Foreshadowing? Maybe.**

 **Long answer. When I was a kid, I always played games like Mario. Games with little to no story and with only one reason to play: gameplay. When my brother and I got a PS2 for Christmas one year, I also got the game The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. This was the first story driven game that I had ever played, and as a result, it left a strong impact. It was about dragons. The gameplay was not very good, but I didn't care. I wanted to find out if the world was going to end! To this day, I still love the story of the Legend of Spyro series. As a kid, I used to dream of being a dragon and being able fly and breathe fire. On top of this, I ended up reading a series of books about dragons, and that fueled my love of dragons even more. In fact, about a month after I posted the first chapter of this, I posted the first chapter of a Legend of Spyro crossover. It did not get much of a response, so I decided to work on it after finishing this story.**


	13. Chapter 13

About an hour after May's interesting conversation with Matilda, three cars appeared in the distance. Most people would only be able to see the headlights of the lead car, but May's eyes could pierce through the dark night and see the three cars distinctly.

"Finally." May muttered to herself. She had been waiting for quite some time. She did not know how long exactly, but that did not matter. What did matter was that she was ready to begin negotiations, and there had been nobody to negotiate with. Though annoyed, she could not blame anyone for her long wait. Regular people could not fly wherever they wanted without a vehicle.

Why didn't the person who she would be talking to take a helicopter? She wondered. Probably the same reason a military attack helicopter had followed her to the warehouse. She was viewed as a potential threat.

Eventually, the three identical cars reached the warehouse and parked near the building. Five men stepped out of the three cars, two from the first two cars and one from the third. The man who got out of the drivers seat in the third car walked around to the back door and opened it.

The man who stepped out of the car appeared to be in his mid sixties. He had mostly grey hair, and he wore rimless glasses. He was dressed in a formal military uniform with various pins and medals that likely denoted his rank and any awards he had received. As the man stood, May noticed that he was somewhat short compared to everyone around him.

Someone handed the man a megaphone an he approached, but did not get near, May.

"Hello. My name is Amos Yadlin. You claim to want to make an exchange with Israel, correct?"

"Correct."

"What is the nature of this exchange?"

"I help you defend your country against I.S.I.S., and in return, Israel recognizes Broodland as a nation."

"Broodland?"

"The name isn't permanent, but it is easier to call it Broodland than to call it its official name."

"Which is?"

"The Marie Byrd Land in Antarctica."

"Indeed. How much support should we be able to expect from the...your people?"

"I can't simply explain our capabilities. There would be too much to say. I think that it would be better to demonstrate what we are capable of. We are called the Zerg by the way."

"When and where could this demonstration take place?"

"Here and now."

"You plan on demonstrating your military's capabilities by yourself?"

"Yes and no. Watch."

May closed her eyes and searched through the Zerg DNA wit her mind. When she found the Zergling DNA that she was looking for, she was surprised to find that the DNA seemed to have three distinct permutations, two of which she had never seen before. One was of regular Zergling DNA, but the other two were slightly altered. She took the regular Zergling DNA and left the altered DNA for later.

May opened her eyes and lifted her front right leg to a position that mimicked holding something. She pulled the Zergling DNA into the real world, and a small larvae, covered in a ball of a mucus-like substance, appeared in her claws. She set it down, and it began to grow and change into something resembling a Zergling. About thirty seconds later, the Zergling was complete. It shook the remaining mucus off of it and cried a screech of excitement.

"This is a Zergling. It is the backbone of the Zerg." May said.

She looked around at the surprised faces around her. The soldiers that had been there when she arrived were now pointing their rifles at her and her Zergling. After several tense moments, Amos spoke up.

"How did you do that?" He asked.

"I used the Zergling DNA to create a Zergling. The process requires biomass, but there is no need to explain how the Zerg operates as a whole. The Zergling is the most numerous Zerg soldier, and it is also the fastest to produce. It does well against lightly armored enemies such as infantry. They can be used as scouts, but they also excel when hunting in large packs."

There were several moments of awkward silence.

"How many of these things do you have?"

May took a quick census of her swarm. She had about one thousand five hundred Zerglings, about seven hundred Roaches, almost four hundred Hydralisks, and exactly one hundred Swarm Hosts.

"I have well over a thousand Zerglings, but there are more types of Zerg than just Zerglings."

"How could a thousand of these ugly things help against an enemy nearly one hundred thousand strong?"

"Shoot it in the head if you don't think that it would stand a chance against a single soldier."

Amos looked at her like she was crazy.

"I am serious. Shoot it in the head." May said again while stepping away from the Zergling.

Amos motioned to the soldier nearest to him. The soldier stepped foreword, and all of the soldiers behind the Zergling moved out of the way. A moment later, he raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired a single shot.

The Zergling's head jerked slightly at the impact of the bullet, but otherwise, it did not move.

Several soldiers chuckled thinking that the he had missed the Zergling in front of him. He fired two more shots, but this time at the body. Again, the Zergling barely moved. The snickers stopped as the soldiers realized that the bullets had in fact hit the Zergling. One shot missing could be explained, but out of three shots, a person with minimal training would have easily hit the Zergling. The beast was shrugging off bullets, or so it appeared. In reality, its armor was damaged a decent amount. It could likely take two more shots to the head, but no more.

The soldier lowered his rifle, backed up, and had a quick conversation with Amos in Hebrew.

"What do you want in return for your military support?" Amos asked May after speaking to the soldier who shot the Zergling.

"I want Israel to recognize the Zerg as a nation occupying the entirety of the Marie Byrd Land."

"What else?"

"That's all. It is very important to us."

"So, Israel recognizes the Zerg nation, and you help us fight I.S.I.S.?"

"Correct."

"I will have someone contact the Prime Minister and we will decide from there. Until then, I have many questions that may need to be answered before a decision can be made."

"Alright."

"Why don't we step inside, I think that everyone will be more comfortable."

Apparently, someone got the clue to open the large warehouse door for May, for it began opening.

Everyone, including May, made for the warehouse, and inside of the warehouse, there was...nothing. The warehouse was completely empty. May had expected something, anything, to be in the warehouse. Military equipment, or even civilian merchandise, but there was nothing. Just a large, well lit, empty room with a concrete floor.

"Why do you have an empty warehouse in the middle of nowhere?" May asked Amos. Amos had put away the megaphone and was walking about six yards ahead of May.

"We used to store weapons and ammunition here, but once the war started, everything was removed. Even the shelves were taken out and sold to provide money for the war effort."

"Oh." Was all she could think to say. She hoped that the Israelis had more places like this one, but full.

The group of several soldiers, Amos, and May with her Zergling reached the corner of the warehouse, and began making themselves comfortable. At least, May made herself comfortable. Nobody else was keen on relaxing around the Zergling.

"I don't think you ever told me your name." Amos commented.

"That is because I have no name."

"No name?"

"I hatched less than an hour ago."

"Okay...right. Then what do I call you?"

"Would you like to give me a name?"

"I think that it would be better if you were to make a name for yourself."

"Okay. I told the people on the beach to call me dragon, so I will keep that."

Amos nodded his head.

There was an awkward moment of silence.

"So, what are you within the Zerg government? Are you an ambassador or something?" Amos asked as he leaned against the wall slightly.

"I am the queen of the Zerg."

Amos' eyebrows rose. "Okay. I wasn't expecting that."

"Yeah, I imagine not."

Amos snapped out of the temporary surprise of this new information. "Where did the Zerg come from? You mentioned the Marie Byrd Lands and having your nation there, but did you come from there? I have never seen anything like you before. Nobody has."

"Neither have I. I cannot say where the Zerg came from. I don't even know where I came from." May replied with what was technically the truth.

"You mentioned types of Zerg other than Zerglings. What other types are there?"

"Would you like me to show you, or tell you?"

Amos looked around to the other humans in the warehouse, and all of them seemed conflicted. They wanted to know about their would-be allies, but they were not sure where they stood in terms of an alliance.

Amos, deciding that Israel needed to have knowledge more than his men needed to be comfortable, replied for everyone in the building. "Show us."

May nodded her large dragonic head and closed her eyes to search through the Zerg DNA. She maneuvered to the Roach DNA, and, like the Zergling DNA earlier, found three distinctly different strains of Roach. Could this have been here all along? She didn't have time to explore right now. She needed the general strain of Roach. She took the strands of Roach DNA that she needed, and opened her eyes.

With the beginnings of a Roach in her talons, May pumped biomass into the creature, and placed the Roach on the ground about halfway through the process. Within a minute, the Roach was fully grown. It shook itself off and screeched in an eagerness to kill.

"This is a Roach." May began to explain. "Roaches have much better armor than Zerglings. While Zerglings bite and claw at their opponents, Roaches spit highly corrosive acid that eats through almost anything. Roaches can also burrow themselves into the ground and tunnel through the earth."

"These are tougher than Zerglings?"

"Zerglings are the smallest and easiest to kill of all of the Zerg, excluding Broodlings, but I don't think they count."

"What other kinds of Zerg are there?"

"I would show you more, but the process of hatching Zerg from scratch is far less efficient than hatching them from Larvae. Larvae can morph into most Zerg creatures and are produced at Hatcheries, Lairs, and Hives. These three structures are large biological buildings that act as the heart of the Zerg."

"Biological buildings?"

"They cannot move, but they are not plants. You'll just have to see one sometime."

Amos chuckled, "I do not plan on going to Antarctica any time soon."

"We have a foreword base in Iraq also. You could visit sometime."

"How long have you occupied Iraq?" Amos asked, being caught slightly off guard. Had these strange creatures begun an invasion without knowing if they would receive support? If so, then was their motivation for helping Israel really to gain political recognition?

"For about three days before my egg appeared."

"How do you know that if you were not alive then?"

"I was alive before I entered my egg, but I had a different form."

"Could you explain?"

"Yes and no. I had a different body, but for security, I cannot tell you what that body looked like."

"Okay." Amos took a moment to consider a new question. "How many types of Zerg are there?"

May continued to answer various questions about the Zerg throughout the night. Naturally, Amos wanted to know as much about them as possible. Little did May know that their conversation was being broadcast to the five members of Israel's War Cabinet.


	14. Chapter 14

"That was fast." May commented upon hearing that the Israelis had accepted her "trade." It had only been a couple of hours since she arrived at the warehouse.

"Even politicians can make quick decisions times of crisis." Amos commented. "Now we need to find a way of working with you."

"Just get me a map and tell me what needs to be done."

"How will you give orders to the Zerg?" Amos asked as he sent someone to get a map of Israel.

"I have a psionic connection to the Zerg. I give them orders with my mind."

"As in telepathy?"

"In a basic sense, yes."

"This keeps getting more interesting every minute." Amos said as a soldier brought a large tablet to the group of Israelis and May. Amos pulled up a map and began pointing out key locations.

"Alright. The brunt force of the attacks are here." Amos said while pointing to Jericho. "We have been slowly forced back toward Jerusalem, and cannot keep Jericho for much longer. How long would it take to get Zerg reinforcements there?"

"I have over seven hundred Zerg here at Janin." May said as she pointed to a city about 40 miles north of Jericho. She could feel the Zerg minds that came from that area, and knew that Janin was the city where she had entered Israel's side of the war. "We can fight our way out of there and be in Jericho in about an hour."

"How do you have hundreds of troops in the middle of a warzone?"

"They are buried beneath the city."

Amos looked like he was about to ask another question, but stopped himself. "The sooner they get over there, the better. As I said, we can't hold Jericho much longer."

May nodded and closed her eyes. She reached out to her nearest orbiting Overseer and used its eyes to find her forces in Janin. They were just as she had left them, but now the land they were burrowed in was occupied by the Jordanians. She ordered all of the seven hundred forty two Zerglings, Roaches, and Hydralisks to unburrow. Upon surfacing, they were faced with the Jordainian front lines, but the Zerg were behind the enemy with the Israelis on the other side of the Jordainians.

May figured that she might as well help the Israelis here, so she split her forces. She ordered her Zerglings to attack the Jordainians from behind, and she ordered the Roaches and Hydralisks to begin heading south toward Jericho; she instructed them to kill any non-Israeli forces they encountered.

As the Roaches and Hydralisks began their trek south, the Zerglings began tearing through the Jordanian occupied streets toward the Israelis. They quickly took out the enemy soldiers along the way until they had eliminated all of the Jordanians that had been in their path. They stopped their rampage as they reached the Israelis and turned south to spread more chaos on their way to Jericho. She ordered them to keep pace with the other forces once they caught up. May watched all of this over the course of several minutes.

May returned the mind of the Overseer she had been looking through and took a quick overview of her swarm. The Hatcheries that she had ordered Matilda to construct were nearing completion. Once they finished, she would have twenty four bases and twenty three Extractors: one for each base excluding the Iraqi Hatchery. Her military was the same as it had been when she arrived in Iraq. Being just over one thousand five hundred strong, the Zerg were getting ready for war.

In terms of a human military, her numbers were laughable, but May knew just how different the Zerg were from humanity. Even though she was vastly outnumbered, she had the element of surprise.

May returned to herself and opened her eyes. Amos was looking at her expectantly.

"I sent my forces to Jericho. They will be there in about an hour."

"Are they just...running there?"

"Yes."

"Won't they be tired when they get there?"

"I doubt it. The last time they went into battle, it was just after running for eleven hours straight."

Amos gave her a slightly surprised look. It was becoming increasingly obvious to him how dangerous her swarm was. Only now that she had begun comparing the Zerg's capabilities to man's did she begin to wonder just how powerful her swarm, and essentially herself, was. Following this train of thought, May closed her eyes and contacted Matilda.

"Matilda?" She thought.

"Yes?"

"Would it be possible for the swarm to conquer the entire Middle East by itself?" May asked, driven by a morbid curiosity.

"Yes." Matilda answered casually.

The lack of thought that went into that answer the question was slightly unnerving.

"How long would that take?"

This time, there was a pause before an answer came.

"About six months."

That sent shivers down her spine. The idea of having enough power to take over the entire middle east in half of a year was not something that she could wrap her head around, and that this power was in her hands made her nervous.

"How long would it take if Israel was against us?"

Again, there was a moments pause.

"I was assuming Israel was against us. If Israel was with us, it would take about five and a half months to take over the Middle East...excluding Israel."

May considered asking about America, but was not sure that she wanted to know the answer. She returned her focus on her own surroundings and heard Amos saying something about a dragon. Then May remembered that she was a dragon, and realized that Amos was just trying to get her attention. She opened her eyes and looked down at Amos.

"I'm sorry. What did you say? I was...talking to my Queen."

"I need to know where our troops in Jericho should expect the Zerg to approach from. We don't want to fire on your forces... Wait, I thought that you were the queen of the Zerg."

"I am the queen of the Zerg, yes. A Queen is a type of Zerg, like the Zergling. I am not a Queen, but I am the queen of the Zerg." May explained. "Anyway, we will be moving in a straight line from Janin to Jericho."

"Thanks." Amos then turned and made a call on his phone.

"Sir, the Zerg will be approaching Jericho from the north north-west in about an hour."

...

"Yes sir, the Zerg that are moving on Jericho were in Janin."

...

"What?" Amos asked as he looked over his shoulder at May.

...

"Yes sir." He then hung up the phone and turned back towards May.

"Thanks for the help in Janin. We weren't expecting that."

"Yeah," May said, slightly embarrassed, "I just saw that we had a good position on the Jordanians and decided that it would be best to help out. There was a minimal chance of us taking any losses...so...I helped."

"Why? You put your own forces in danger to help us, and you are sending them to more danger to protect us. What do you gain in all of this?"

May contemplated the man's question. She gained recognition as a nation, sure, but she did not have to help he Israelis in Janin to gain that.

"I..." she sighed, "the Zerg can be reborn. People cannot."

This seemed to satisfy Amos' curiosity for now, but he still seemed suspicious.

"Alright, let's get back to work."

* * *

 **Hey guys, sorry for the short chapter. :( Before I say anything, I want to mention something. When the chapters get into the twenties, the first part of this story will end. At that point, there will likely be several weeks (but maybe even over a month) when I don't post any new chapters. This will be because I will be working on the second part of the story and making sure that I know exactly where I am going to take the story before putting out new stuff.**

 **Just a random thing really quick (not really quick, but oh well...). I always used to wonder how writers came up with their character's names, so I figured that I would tell you guys where the name "May Flowers" came from. Truly, the name has no meaning whatsoever. When I first had the idea for this story it was going to be about a character that I had not created a name for, and the story was not even going to be a Starcraft Fic. Because of this, I just wrote "Main" as the name when referring to the main character in my storyline. Then, I decided to just use the name "May" because it was the closest actual name that sounded like "Main." The name "May" was never meant to be permanent.**

 **After a while, I began to consider the idea of May having a twin sister. Being me, I decided to give May's possible twin sister the name "April" referring to the old rhyme "April showers bring May flowers." May Flowers. I figured that "Flowers" sounded like a viable last name, and it stuck. Yep. I really did that. By the time I had a significant amount of stuff written down, I was too lazy to change the name to something more meaningful. I eventually discarded the twin sister idea, but I kept the name for May's college roommate, April Showers, as a bit of an inside joke that was going to be known by only me. I thought that the whole evolution of the name was a bit funny, so here I am telling you guys.**

 **If you guys want to know more about how I developed the things in the story, let me know.**

 **P.S. It may be a while (hopefully not more than a week) before I can get another chapter out.**

 **To Starjumper2821: I do that all of the time. I hate it when someone gets halfway through writing a story and then quits updating without giving a reason. If I, for some strange reason, stop posting new chapters, I will definitely tell you guys why.**

 **To Akshka: I did not really think about that, but I am glad that you brought it up. (Hold onto your seats. I over-think everything. This could take a while.) For reasons that will be explained MUCH later on, May's psionic abilities have no basis on her physiology. Her psionic growth will only be the result of either practice, figuring out how things work, or reflex (like when she stopped the spit of her interrogator).**

 **(/\ /\ /\ That is the short answer.)**

 **(\/ \/ \/ Down there is the long answer. Read it at your own peril. There is a plot hole(ish) that I only just now noticed, and it is revealed below.)**

 **"Why couldn't she use psionics stop herself from being kidnapped and beaten?" I hear you ask as you raise an eyebrow. Because she was focusing on escape. An escape is an idea, not an action. I like to think of psionics like I think of a calculator. It is a tool to make solving a problem easier, but it cannot solve problems on its own. May's instinctual reaction to being spit at was to stop the spit, something that is a direct action, and thus capable of being acted upon directly through psionics. Escape is not a direct action, but rather an abstract idea that requires multiple direct actions to take place in order to be accomplished.**

 **"But she could have untied the rope that tied her to the pole." Yes, but she was not acting on instinct when she was trying to free herself. She was using what tools she had to bring to fruition an abstract idea.**

 **"If everything you have said is true, then why did she only notice the three separate strains of Zerg DNA for each Zerg creature after she became a dragon?" Because...well...May's ability to see DNA is related to her biology?**

 **"So you are saying that if/when May becomes a human again, she won't be able to see the strands of Zerg DNA?" Well...I plan on avoiding that becoming an issue...so...yeah...**

 **Maybe I should stop taking this story so seriously...or I could not do that...I will not do that.**


	15. Chapter 15

_**Three days after the hatching of the egg in Tel Aviv.**_

John tiredly stepped out of the jet bridge that connected his plane to the airport. He had only been gone for three days, but he was glad to be back in America. He was almost just as glad to be able to walk around freely after his eleven hour flight.

Aside from a distant look at the dragon that came from the egg, he did not encounter any Zerg during his trip. He was disappointed, but he hoped that what little he did see would be worth something to the Department of Defense.

John made his way through the busy airport to his car that waited in a parking garage. A parking garage with a hefty daily fee. After paying the bill for keeping his car in the garage, John began to make his way through the parking lot.

He was on the third story, where his car was parked, when a large black van drove up next to him. The sliding door in the side of the van opened, and a man dressed in a black suit spoke.

"John Dillinger?" The man asked.

"Who is asking?" John replied anxiously. These guys were obviously working for someone with power. The question was, we're they with the U.S. government or not?

"DTRA. Are you or are you not John Dillinger?" The man asked with impatience.

"I am." John answered.

"Get in."

John furrowed his brow. He didn't like this.

"Look," the man in the van said, "if you want to get paid for your trip to Tel Aviv, then you need to get in the van."

John silently climbed into the van and sat down in on a chair that was bolted to the floor. The man in the suit closed the van door and sat down. The van lurched forward and began making its way to the lower levels of the parking garage.

For several minutes, John sat in silence, but after about fifteen minutes in the van, his curiosity got the best of him.

"Where are we going?" John asked the man in the suit.

"Fort Belvoir. Virginia" The man replied.

John deadpanned. He had just stepped off a plane with cramped seats, and now he had to sit in a van for two and a half hours. John pit his head into his hands and groaned.

* * *

The sliding door to the van opened with a thud. John climbed out of the van and found himself in the middle of a parking lot.

"Follow me." The man in the black suit said behind him.

John turned around and quickly began to catch up to the man who had already begun walking away. As the two walked away from the van, the driver began to drive away.

They began walking toward a large building. The entrance and lobby was walled with glass, and John could see the inside. The rest of the building, however, was mostly brick, excluding the first floor which was made of a white material.

The two entered, and John was given a visitor badge. A short elevator ride and many hallways later, they were standing in front of an office door.

The man in the suit knocked.

"Sir, Mr. Dillinger is here to see you." The man said to whoever was on the other side of the door.

"Let him in." Came the reply.

The man in the suit opened the door, and John walked through.

Inside was a surprisingly large and we'll furnished room. The floor was carpeted with the seal of the DOD, and at the back of the room was a massive wooden desk. Sitting on the other side of the desk was a woman with short dirty blonde hair that hardly made it past her ears. She was wearing a tan ladies suit, and she appeared to be in her late forties or early fifties.

"Good morning Mr. Dillinger," The woman said, "I and director Durand of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. I have heard a lot about your work recently."

"I am sure everyone has, unfortunately." John replied.

"I'm going to cut to the chase. Nobody knows what the Zerg are, and you have the most first hand knowledge of them. I want to hire you to find out everything you can about the Zerg. I can pay you sixty two thousand per year."

"What will I be doing?" John asked.

"You will need to figure that out yourself." The director stated.

"Then I'll take it."

The director smiled a little as she extended her hand to shake. "Good to have you aboard."

"What do you need me to do?" John asked after shaking the director's hand.

"You will be working closely with this man," she said as she slid a file forward, "Scott Peters. He'll be your partner and he'll show you the ropes until you know what you're doing. I will expect a report on everything you find out, as soon as you find out.

"Mr. Peters' office is just around the corner to the right. We will worry about all of the paperwork later. Until then, you have work to do." Director Durand made a shooing motion with her hand as she turned her attention to the paperwork in front of her.

John turned around and exited the room without saying another word. He had just been given a new job. A job that paid significantly more than his old one.

He smiled as he made his way to Mr. Peters' office. No matter what he had to do, this was going to be many times more fulfilling than working at a grocery store.

John quickly found Mr Peters' office and knocked on the frame of the open door. The man who sat at the desk quickly looked up. He was an older man, or at least he looked like it in some ways. His face appeared to be fairly young, but his hair and eyes said otherwise. Mr. Peters had a head of white hair that was receding from the front, but he when he stood to greet John, he stood straight. He even appeared to be rather fit in the way he walked to shake John's hand.

"Good morning. Mr. Dillinger I presume." Peters said as he shook John's hand with a cocky smile that John felt was out of place. He sounded young. Perhaps his hair greyed early. Very early.

"That's right. Are you Mr. Peters?" John asked.

"The one and only, aside from all of the other men named Peters." This guy was a character. "I'm told that you, sir, are going to be investigating the Zerg threat."

"I am here to investigate the Zerg, but I wouldn't call them a threat just yet." John replied calmly.

"First thing that you need to get into your head is that if you aren't sure that something is a threat, then you treat it like it is a threat. We can't afford to get lazy around here. Murphy's Law is what we work to combat, so until we know that the Zerg isn't a threat, we will call it one. Got it?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Now we can work."

"What's first?" John asked.

"If I knew that, then you wouldn't be here." Peters replied.

Brilliant. First few minutes in a new job, and not a clue about what he was supposed to do. Except...he just needed to find out anything about the Zerg, and he knew that May Flowers had something to do with their first appearance. He might as well start there.

"There is a girl. Her name is May Flowers. Let's find out everything that we can about her." John stated.

"Then that, Dillinger, is what we shall do first." Peters replied.

Why did he always end up with such strange coworkers?

* * *

 **I am sorry! I am so, so sorry! Forgive me please! I have failed you all for so long! Even now I am failing you by posting this miserably short chapter. It really is a disgrace. Unfortunately, it can't be helped. School, work, schoolwork, and writers block. Well, not quite writers block. I just really did not want to write this chapter. It is so boring! That is part of the reason why it is so short. Don't worry. I promise to make it up to you in the next two chapters. They will not be boring...hopefully.**

 **To Akshka: I think that you are the second or third person to say something about a Mass Effect crossover. Hmmmm. I guess this story reminds people of Mass Effect. *sigh* I guess I should play Mass Effect sometime. But I am broke. Maybe I could look up the cutscenes on YouTube. That sounds like a good idea.**

 **As for making this a crossover...I can't bring myself to do that with this story. I feel as though I would alienate all of the people who haven't read/played/seen whatever the crossover is of. Thank you for your feedback and continual support! It means a lot!**

 **To ThirdAscendant: shhhhhh. You aren't supposed to talk about that yet.**

 **Thank you guys for your support, and I apologize for the stupid long time between posts!**


	16. Chapter 16

**I am not dead! (** **Just figured that I should get that out of the way for you guys.)**

 **Just as a bit of a warning, this chapter involves several changes in perspective and rather awkward jumps in format. I apologize for this, but I couldn't think of a better way of having all of this information in this chapter. There are line breaks between these shifts though. You have been warned.**

 **Oh, and uh...this chapter gets a little dark at the end...**

* * *

 ** _Sixty seven days after the hatching of the egg in Tel Aviv._**

* * *

"It is good to finally meet you Dr. Weinberg." John said.

John had been working almost nonstop since beginning work at the DoD. It hadn't taken long to find the records for May's adoption, but much of the information was restricted for legal reasons. After nearly two months of jumping through hoops, he and Peters managed to find May's birth mother.

It took a couple of weeks to convince Dr. Weinberg to allow American government agents to see his patient, but eventually, he allowed a brief visit. Immediately, John booked a flight to Germany.

"I wish that I could say the same thing Mr. Dillinger. I am still not fully convinced that it is a good idea to let you visit Ms. Hartmann." Dr. Weinberg said as the two walked through the halls of a large church.

Weinberg was a short, round faced man with a large forehead and greying hair. He has stocky, but not fat, and he spoke with a slight German accent.

"Why not?" John asked.

"You claim that she has a daughter, yes?" Weinberg asked.

"Yes."

"Ms. Hartmann has mentioned that she has a daughter, but it has only been during one of her delusional episodes when she refuses her medication."

"So you think that her daughter is tied to her delusions?" John asked.

"I think so, yes." Weinberg said.

The two continued in silence for a moment before Weinberg stopped next to a closed door.

"This is her room. She spends most of her time in here."

John nodded as Weinberg knocked on the door. Ms. Hartmann said something in German and about a minute later, the door opened.

Ms. Hartmann and Dr. Weinberg had a short conversation in German as John entered.

As she was talking to Dr. Weinberg, Ms. Hartmann sat down at a table with a sewing machine on it and began to sew.

She said something in German, and Dr. Weinberg translated.

"She wants too know why you are here." The doctor said.

"Tell her than I think that I found her daughter." John said as he placed the folder he had been carrying onto a coffee table in the center of the room.

Weinberg relayed the information as he sat down in a nearby chair, and Ms. Hartmann replied in German.

"She says that that isn't why you are here."

John frowned. "Then why am I here?" He asked.

Without speaking, Ms. Hartmann stood up and walked over to a chair with a quilt neatly folded over the backrest. She picked up the quilt and unfolded it, letting the front of the quilt face John. Only then did she speak.

"She wants to know...which one?" Dr. Weinberg said uncertainly.

The quilt's design was divided into two parts. On the right side of the quilt was what appeared to be a man wearing solid gold armor with high shoulder guards. However, it was clear that this was not a man. It had a light blue, elongated face and hands, no mouth, and glowing eyes.

On the left side of the quilt, a Zergling was depicted running. John's brow furrowed.

"May I take a picture?" John asked.

Ms. Hartmann nodded in the affirmative. John pulled out a camera and took a photo.

"How long have you had that quilt?" John asked.

Dr. Weinberg replied instead of Ms. Hartmann. "That was one of the first ones she made...around fifteen years ago I think."

John inhaled sharply. "Why did you make it?" He asked.

After Dr. Weinberg translated, Ms. Hartmann smiled and replied.

"She says that she made it so that you would listen to her when her daughter woke up." Dr. Weinberg said.

"What do you have to say?" John asked.

Ms. Hartman replied as she folded the quilt back up.

"She wants you to answer her question first." The doctor relayed.

"The beast on the left."

Ms. Hartman replied as she sat back down at her sewing machine.

"She wants to know when her daughter woke up." Weinberg translated.

"What does she mean by 'woke up'?" John asked.

Dr. Weinberg and Ms. Hartmann had a shirt conversation before Dr. Weinberg turned back to John.

"From the way she describes it, she means something like her daughter was revealed or realized, perhaps..." Dr. Weinberg turned back to Ms. Hartmann and had another brief conversation before resuming his conversation with John.

She says that when her daughter woke up would be the day that the Zerg were created.

"That was about four months ago." John stated.

Ms. Hartmann laughed when the doctor answered. Instead of giving any reply, she simply began sewing two pieces of fabric together.

"Ms. Hartmann?" Dr. Weinberg called.

Ms. Hartmann turned her attention to the doctor and stopped sewing. The two had a quick conversation in German before Dr. Hartmann turned to John.

"She says that she doesn't want to talk about it anymore." The doctor said.

"Can you at ask her how she knew about the Zerg?"

The doctor had a quick conversation with Ms. Hartmann before turning back to John.

"She doesn't want to talk about it. She keeps saying that it doesn't matter."

John frowned again. "Can you ask her what the other-"

Dr. Weinberg cut John off by raising his hand. "Please. She does this sometimes. I don't think that she is going to tell you anything else. It would be best for her if we left." Weinberg said as he stood.

John gave Ms. Hartmann a hard look as he stood and began to follow Dr. Weinberg out the door.

Just as they reached the door, Ms. Hartmann shouted something. Dr. Weinberg turned around and the two spoke briefly.

"She wants to see a picture of her daughter." Dr. Weinberg said to John.

John opened the folder he was carrying and fished out a picture of May. He stepped forward and placed the picture in front of the woman who stared at it longingly. She said something in German, but did not look away from the picture.

"She wants to keep it." Dr. Weinberg translated.

John nodded, and Dr. Weinberg motioned for him to leave.

Again, Ms. Hartmann spoke as they were about to leave.

Dr. Weinberg turned to John and translated.

"She would like to see her daughter if possible."

"I'll see what I can do." John replied before exiting the room.

* * *

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

DEFENSE THREAT REDUCTION AGENCY

FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA

To: Director Durand

Date: 08/20/17

Precedence: Immediate

From: Berlin, Germany - Bethel Hospital

Drafted by: John Dillinger

Approved by: Scott Peters

Synopsis: To provide results of interview of Christiane Hartmann, suspected mother of May Janine Flowers.

On 08/19/17, Christine Hartmann was briefly interviewed by John Dillinger in her room at the Bethel Hospital in Berlin Germany. Hartmann was initially cooperative, but became unwilling to answer questions after discovering the duration of the Zerg's existence. Hartmann provided the following information:

Hartmann had knowledge regarding the existence and the physical appearance of the Zerg prior to the birth of the first Hatchery by May Flowers. Attached is a photograph of a quilt made approximately fifteen years ago by Hartmann. Dr. Weinberg bore witness to this fact. Given Hartmann's perceived mental instability, she claims to have made the quilt as proof of her validity in case someone found her.

Further investigation found the attached report from Bethel Hospital dated as late December of 1997 in which, Ms. Hartmann claimed to have been given a vision of the future by an unknown being described as having glowing red eyes and no physical body. Further, she claimed that this being showed her two races of intelligent creatures called the Zerg and the Protoss. She was shown images that she later began to integrate into various quilts, including the quilt that is shown in the attached photograph. According to the report, the being implanted a child within her and instructed her to be the creator, leader, and uniter of the Zerg and Protoss races. Hartmann's perceived delusions resulted in her losing custody of May Flowers and her permanent residence at the Bethel Hospital.

When Hartmann was told the length of time since Flowers woke up - which seemed to be referring to the creation of the Zerg - she refused to answer any further questions, claiming that it did not matter. However, Hartmann did express a desire to speak with her daughter in person.

The circumstances surrounding Hartmann's pregnancy will be investigated further along with a more detailed investigation into Hartmann's admittance to Bethel Hospital.

End of report.

* * *

John sighed as he closed the laptop that he had just used to send a hurried report to the DTRA director's office. He was in the Berlin Tegel Airport waiting for his flight out of Germany. His very brief stay had not even allowed him the time to spend the night at a hotel. In fact, he had arrived in Germany early in the morning, and as John sent his report, the sun was preparing to set.

Not ten minutes after the report was sent, he received a notification on his secure phone. The director had already read his report, and was ordering him to cease all investigation of Christine Hartmann until further notice. Upon reading this, John frowned.

He wanted to ignore the order, but to do so would likely result in his immediate dismissal. However, nothing stopped him from looking into Hartmann on his own time. He would be limited to whatever was public knowledge, but he was not about to let such an important lead be missed. Likely, Hartmann's case would be given to another team to investigate, and John needed to know everything he could find out about May if he was going to find out who had taken her.

What Hartmann had to do with May's disappearance, John had no idea. What he did know was that someone had known beforehand that the Zerg existed, and it appeared that someone wanted to use them for some purpose. What that purpose was, again, John had no idea. In spite of his ignorance, or perhaps because of it, he did not know, John decided to follow the path set before him.

* * *

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

DEFENSE THREAT REDUCTION AGENCY

FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA

To: Timothy Carter

Date: 08/20/17

Precedence: Immediate

From: Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Drafted by: Director Durand

Approved by: Director Durand

Synopsis: To provide a more detailed account of the knowledge of Christiane Hartmann, suspected mother of May Janine Flower, regarding the Zerg and Protoss.

On 08/19/17, Christine Hartmann was briefly interviewed by John Dillinger in her room at the Bethel Hospital in Berlin Germany. Hartmann was initially cooperative, but became unwilling to answer questions after discovering the duration of the Zerg's existence. Hartmann provided limited information, but a more detailed account has been deemed necessary. You are to obtain the following information:

A detailed description of the being that reportedly placed May Flowers within Hartmann.

A detailed description of the visions Hartmann saw regarding the Protoss and Zerg races.

A detailed description of the exact task meant for May Flowers regarding the Protoss and Zerg races.

A detailed description of the circumstances surrounding Hartmann's loss of custody of May Flowers.

A detailed reason for the cause of the sudden appearance of the Zerg race.

A detailed description of the circumstances that will result in the creation of the Protoss race.

A reason for why knowledge of the time of the Zerg's appearance caused Hartmann to refuse to answer further questions.

A detailed account of any information that may seem pertinent to the Zerg, Protoss, or May Flowers.

No permanent damage is to be dealt to Hartmann until after the above information has been retrieved unless the subject resists all other forms of questioning. Any ties between you and the DoD are to be dissolved should you be placed under arrest or you actions discovered by any outside source.

Order effective immediately.

* * *

Upon receiving his orders, Timothy wiped any traces of it from his laptop. Simply deleting it would not be enough, so he used a government issue program to replace the data where the document had been with over a dozen sets of randomized ones and zeros.

Timothy shut down his laptop and walked out the door. First, he needed to scout out the hospital. Second, he needed to find a way to get the target out without anyone noticing. After that, he would take her to a nearby interrogation facility in Berlin where he would get everything he needed out of her. After getting the information from the target, he would need a place to dump her body.

* * *

 **Sorry about another long period between updates! It was not intentional! I did not plan on having this chapter as early in the story as it is, but it made the most sense for it to go here. I am not a huge fan of this chapter or the last, but they needed to happen for things to make sense later on. (Next chapter will involve the kicking of butt and the taking of names to make up for the long period between posts and these boring two chapters.)**

 **Anyway, I think that from now on, to keep this post-chapter stuff down to a minimum, I am going to be responding to people's reviews through PMs unless the review has a particularly good question or a question that has been asked by several people. A large, to large in my opinion, portion of this story's word count thus far is because of the length of these post-chapter responses.**

 **Speaking of responses that involve pretty much everyone, Arachnodon says "You still haven't answered to my idea of May's different form, or basically anyone's ideas."**

 **This statement is not false. If I haven't answered anyone's questions or comments about something, it is most likely because I have not come to a solid conclusion on whether or not I want to or even can implement the idea while still holding to the story that I have planned. I wan't to implement May having alternate forms, but I am not entirely sure where I could without changing a lot of other stuff. I have large portions of the story to come already written out (but not finalized), and a change in May's physical makeup would constitute large changes in various places scattered around future chapters. I am fairly certain that I will have May take another form in the future though. My apologies for not answering y'all's questions. If you have asked a question that I have not answered, feel free to PM me and I will try to get back to you.**

 **I will see you all in the next chapter!**


	17. Chapter 17

**_Six months after the hatching of the egg in Tel Aviv_**

* * *

May soared high over the arid plains of the Middle East enjoying the freedom of flight. Over the past months she had not been given many chances to fly for long distances. The war had kept her busy.

When she first got involved in the war with I.S.I.S., the Israelis had only used her forces as a last resort. They trusted her because they had no other choice. With Israel as the Zerg's only country to recognize the Zerg as a nation, May was quick to ensure that she did not break their trust.

However, as time went on, the Israelis began utilising the Zerg more often, and more Roaches and Zerglings were being sent to aid Israel. Until now, she was always instructed to defend or protect a city or patrol an area. Because of this, she had always stayed behind to plan and work with the Israelis.

Today was different. Today she had been tasked with taking a small airfield in southern Israel near the city of Mitspe Ramon. It was a small but important airport because it gave I.S.I.S. an airport near the front lines. If she had her way, I.S.I.S. would lose it by nightfall.

Her plan was simple. Go in, kill everyone, and make sure I.S.I.S. never gets the airport back. However, the first two steps made her nervous.

Ever since she accidentally discovered her telekinetic abilities before she became a dragon, she had been testing her limits.

At first, she tried to make small rocks float like she had made the interrogator's spit float six months earlier. She found telekinesis to be fairly easy to get the hang of, and quickly moved on to pulling chunks of rock out of the ground. After she mastered that, she wanted to try something bigger. When she began having trouble finding places where she could be alone and practice, she turned to the Mediterranean Sea.

She would go on flights over the Mediterranean at every opportunity, though that mostly meant the dead of night. During her first attempts, she lifted water out of the sea, but after six months of practice, she could lift over fifty tons of a sand and water mixture from the bottom of the sea, then separate the water from the sand without dropping a grain or drop of either.

Telling the sand and water apart was not easy. After experimenting and failing many times, May became able to pick out each tiny grain of sand from a few liters of the mixture and drop the water away. That was two months ago. Since then, she had further developed her telekinesis.

Today would be the ultimate test of her abilities. She had never fought anyone before. Any serious fighting that she had done had been through one of the bodies of the many members of her swarm. Today she would be fighting as herself, and she would be alone. She had one hundred Roaches burrowed around the Mitspe Ramon airport, but she only planned on using them if there were no other options. She wanted to prove herself.

The butterflies that were in her stomach throughout the flight to the airport intensified when the airport's air traffic control building became visible on the horizon.

She did a quick overview of her Swarm to calm herself. The fifteen hundred strong Zerg military had grown to twenty thousand over six months of war. She had hundreds of some of the most powerful Zerg, and she had begun growing a Leviathan.

While an Ultralisk would take just over four days to hatch from start to finish, and a Hive would take almost sixteen days from creating the drone to the final product, a Leviathan would take almost twenty three days to birth.

It had been sixteen days since it began, and May was excited at the new possibilities it would create for the Zerg. If the Zerg was lucky enough to be accepted as a nation, then she was hoping to reveal her Leviathan to the world and eventually take researchers to distant worlds. No humans nor man-made objects had ever been to another star system, and May wanted to change that.

Even though May had amassed a large army of powerful Zerg, she used a small fraction of her forces to assist Israel. Most of her forces remained in Broodland, for she only brought Zerg to Israel when she did not have enough to complete whatever mission the Israelis had assigned to her.

She did not work with the Israelis as much and she worked for them. She figured that since their country was at stake, they should decide what was done to defend it. Because of this, she tried to keep in constant contact with the Israeli military, and she had a Nydus Network connecting her Hatchery in Iran to the Zerg operations warehouse near Tel Aviv. Matilda had used this Nydus Worm to travel to the warehouse.

With Matilda in contact with the Israelis, May could indirectly communicate with them.

"I can see the Mitspe Ramon airport. I will be there within five minutes." May told Matilda, expecting her to relay this information to the Israelis.

She began to descend, and sped toward the edge of a cliff.

The airport was situated in a large valley, several kilometers wide at its longest, that was surrounded by steep cliffs on most sides. May landed on the edge of one of these cliffs and looked down at the airport.

"Matilda, I'm here."

With her enhanced vision, May could see about a dozen parked planes and helicopters at the airport...and few guards. The airport was not on the front lines, and the Zerg had never attacked any I.S.I.S. troops without Israelis present. Because no Israeli forces would have been able to reach the airport unnoticed, I.S.I.S. had practically stopped guarding the airport.

The only way May was able to get to the airport undetected was by morphing into a Roach-like creature, tunneling under the warzone, and morphing back into a dragon once on the other side. It was a process that took a couple of days, but if she succeeded, it would be worth it.

May inhaled deeply, and slowly blew some of the butterflies out of her stomach. She then jumped off of the ledge that she stood on, and hugged the ground as she sped towards the airport.

She figured that the parked planes and helicopters could be used by the Israelis, so she did not want to destroy them. Instead, she went for the air traffic control tower. It was attached directly to the main building, and May had a clear shot at it.

Once May was close to the tower, she shot up towards the top of the tower and blasted through the glass windows, landing on top of an oblivious soldier and crushing a couple of computer desks. Chaos erupted.

She heard a gunshot to her left, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a soldier with a pistol laying on the ground. He had been knocked down by her entry. She swung her tail into the man at lightning speed, tossing him across the tower room and through the unbroken window on the other side.

May saw two more soldiers preparing to fire on her from her front and right. They also had pistols. She stretched out her left wing, and swung it into the chests of the two soldiers, and clipping the head of a third who was trying to get to his feet. The two men were sent flying, and they landed on a table across the room. The third man had either been knocked out or killed by the strike to the head.

May looked around her and found the room to be void of life. However, the same could not have been said of the rest of the airport. May could hear soldiers running up the stairs to the top of her tower. Wanting to prevent the soldiers from organising, she jumped out of the window she entered through.

She pulled up to hover halfway between the air traffic control room and the ground floor and psionically punched a hole through the wall to provide entry. The large chunk of cinder block wall shattered and rained down the center of the spiral staircase. May hopped through the newly created hole and found her level empty. She looked down at the spiral staircase that led to the ground floor. It too was empty. Above her, the soldiers that she had heard earlier were at the top of the stairs disappearing into the control room.

May spread her wings as much as she could given the tight space and jumped up while using her wings to get a small boost. She climbed the staircase somewhat clumsily, and psionically punched a hole through the floor of the air traffic control room once she reached the top.

She darted through the hole and found a group of thoroughly freaked out soldiers trying to figure out what had happened. They quickly surmised that the Zerg were upon them.

All of the soldiers opened fire, and May acted quickly. She pounced on two of the soldiers and picked them up with her front talons. Then she jumped up through one of the windows and dropped the two before flying away and circling back around. Making another pass through the control room, she picked up two more soldiers and dropped them to their deaths. She made two more passes before the room was clear.

Once all of the soldiers in the tower were gone, she landed in the control room once more. She checked herself for injuries and found that, although none of the bullets had penetrated her armor, the bullets had severely weakened it. Cracks were visible and a lucky shot could potentially pierce through.

She was interrupted from her thoughts by the thudding of AK-47 fire and instinctively dipped her head as bullets impacted the walls of the tower from the outside. More AK-47s joined, and soon, the fire was constant and coming from all around the tower. It wouldn't be long before bullets began to make their way through the thick walls of the tower. May looked down through the hole in the floor to see if she could get out that way, but when she did, soldiers running up the stairs opened fire. May jerked her head back and surveyed the room for anything she could use.

May looked up and had an idea. Using her psionic prowess, she broke the supports for the roof of the control room, and lifted the roof slightly. Then she leapt out of the room and immediately turned back in an upward direction, landing on top of the roof that she was levitating. She then moved the roof over where some of the soldiers on the ground were shooting from. Then she dropped the roof. She and the roof dropped towards the ground, and just before the roof hit, she jumped up and flapped her wings to slow herself. The roof crushed several soldiers who had not been able to move away fast enough, and May landed on top of the roof.

The soldiers again opened fire, and May psionically shifted a thin layer of earth beneath their feet causing them to fall. She took out several while they were down, but more began to make their way around the airport to aid their fellow soldiers. May was forced to burrow.

Even though the Zerg had been fighting I.S.I.S. for six months, the abilty to burrow had not been used around them except by Roaches who could tunnel. As such, they had learned to expect burrowed Zerg to move underground. The soldiers began looking around, expecting her to resurface anywhere.

After collecting herself for a moment, she burst from the ground and psionicaly picked up a dozen watermelon sized chunks of earth and chunked them at the surrounding soldiers.

The remaining twenty or so turned to May and were about to open fire when May pulled their weapons toward her, wrenching them from the soldiers' grasp. The AK-47s floated around her for a moment before she sent them back to where they came from at blistering speeds. The rifles sped through the air and struck their wielders, breaking bones and tearing flesh. Several of them were killed, but most ended up severely injured.

May looked around and got her bearings. An alarm was going off, and she could see a line of trucks full of soldiers coming her way. In the distance, the city of Mitspe Ramon could also be seen. Reenforcements would likely be ariving within minutes.

Deciding not to wait for more enemies to arrive, May began bounding toward the line of trucks. The physical build of a dragon did not allow for any form of running, so the fastest way for May to move without flying was to practically jump repeatedly forward. Though it worked well for Zerglings,

As she approached the convoy, the soldiers in the first truck opened fire. Instead of dealing with each individual soldier, May psionically picked up the first truck and threw it on top of the one trailing behind it. The colision was violent and certainly killed everyone involved. The third and final truck had to swerve sharply off of the road to avoid the wreckage.

Seeing how effective her first approach was, May lifted this truck into the air as well, and tossed it upwards. At about fifteen yards high, it began its descent. It crashed into the ground making a loud thud and a cloud of dust.

May then jumped into the air and circled the airport while looking for enemies. She found that some of the soldiers she had thrown the guns at were still trying to put up a fight, and several of them shot at her while she flew. She simply tossed the survivors high into the air, and allowed gravity to finish the job.

Next came the airport building. She wanted to clear the building herself, but decided against it because she did not want to cause more damage than she had to. The Israelis would have to repair anything she broke whenever they got there.

Instead, she ordered a dozen Roaches to clear the building for her. When the Roaches cleared the building, taking out everyone inside, May contacted Matilda.

"Matilda, tell Amos that the Saudi Arabian forces at the airfield have been eliminated."

"It will be done."

Now all May had to do was hold the airfield. The loss of the airfield would help give the Israelis air superiority in the area, thus driving back the I.S.I.S. forces, hopefully. The process could take weeks, and May had a Nydus Worm underneath the airport ready to provide reinforcements within minutes should more enemies arrive before the Israelis did. However, May still wanted to push herself, so she wouldn't call in the Nydus Worm unless she had to.

* * *

 **As requested, "More May and less mother-killing." - Arachnodon**

 **Also, a much quicker update!**

 **Don't worry about me abandoning you guys and not telling you. You guys make me want to write more, and if I decide to discontinue this story, you guys will be some of the first to know about it. I hate it when I find a story that has been abandoned for years with nothing explaining what happened...Okay...I take that back, if I die suddenly, I won't be able to tell you guys that I am not going to write any more...so...if I abandon this story with no explanation, something terrible has happened.**

 **Just a quick apology to anyone from Israel who may be reading this story: sorry for invading your country.**

 **Last thing: I know that Donald Trump won the election. However, I let you guys vote for the president in this story. Hillary Clinton won my poll, and our alternate, Zerg infested future will have America's first female president in it. I thought that we would be farther along by now, but that did not pan out. Oh well.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	18. Chapter 18

Two days later, May was resting on the Mitspe Airport control tower. Shortly after she had taken the airport, a small force of less than fifty soldiers riding in HMMWVs had attacked. She had dealt with them quickly, throwing them into each other like toys. After that, no attacks came.

May was not sure whether she should be relieved or anxious. The Saudi Arabians should not have given up the airport so easily. It was in a good location tactically, and it housed several attack helicopters, fighter jets, and utility aircraft.

On a better note, the sudden decrease in Saudi Arabian air support had allowed Israel to advance their forces southward toward Mitspe Ramon. When they arrived, May would be able to leave the airport and prepare for another strike.

May was considering asking the Israelis if they wanted help on their push south when May heard a soft boom come from somewhere in the distance. Although it was quiet from where she was, far to quiet for human ears to hear, she could tell that it was about five miles away and that it had from behind and to the left of the nearby city of Mitspe Ramon.

About forty seconds later, she heard the boom again. May stood up, wondering what the sound could be.

Forty seconds later, the boom happened again. Curious, May found an Overseer orbiting over her area, and used its eyes. She found herself in seconds, and began to look in the direction of the booming sounds. About five miles away from her, she saw what was making the booming noise. Self-propelled artillery. Ten of them.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she immediately ordered all of her Roaches to get as far from the airport as possible. She returned the mind of the Overseer and flapped her wings in an effort to get herself as far from the ground as possible. She had only just gotten off of the air traffic control tower when the shells struck the airport.

The artillery had fired their first volley in such a way that it would take about one minute and forty seconds to hit the airport. The second volley, which was fired forty seconds later, would take sixty seconds to reach the airport. The third and final volley would be fired forty seconds after the second, and would take twenty seconds to reach the airport. Thus, twenty seconds after the third volley, all three volleys would strike the airport. If timed correctly, the enemy would be dead before they knew that they were being attacked. Had it not been for her extremely acute senses, May would have been oblivious to the incoming strike. She didn't have time to kick herself for being so lazy and careless.

There were ten shells per volley and three volleys. Thirty rounds of high explosive struck the airport within a span of three seconds.

May felt the shockwaves rip through her body, and she was sent flying high into the air along with tiny pieces of what was left of the airport building. The explosions blasted her high into the air.

Time seemed to slow when she realised that the ground far beneath her was beginning to get closer. She slowly, at least it felt slow, managed to turn herself into a position where she could use her wings. She flapped her wings hard in an attempt to regain control of her descent. When she did, she was sent spiraling out of control.

May looked over at her right wing to find that the tough wing membrane had been torn in many places by the shrapnel from the control tower. Her left wing was also torn, but not nearly as badly as her left.

She tried to regain control of her fall, but once she did, she realized that it was to late. She slowed herself as much as she could before slamming onto the lip of a crater in the ground.

The initial impact broke several ribs and her back right leg, sending her towards the center of the crater. She tumbled through the air, and landed a second time, but this time she landed on her right wing, breaking it in the middle.

When May opened her eyes, the world was spinning and the only thing to be heard was the ringing in her ears. When she gathered her thoughts, she ordered a nearby Nydus Worm to surface next to the artillery. Then ordered any remaining Roaches near the airport to attack the artillery. It would take about two minutes for the Nydus Worm to surface from where it was underneath the airport, and eight minutes for the Roaches to get there.

She wanted to get out of range of the artillery, but she was afraid to move. She took the mind of the orbiting Overseer she had used earlier and found the artillery. The artillery had not moved, and their barrels were still pointed at the sky. Then they fired again. May's heart sank. She needed to escape.

She tried to move, but she was met by crippling pain. She grunted and tried to think of a way to get out of the target area of the artillery strike.

The artillery fired again. She needed to escape now.

She tried to burrow, but the pain returned with a vengeance as the broken bone in her wing pierced her skin. She screamed in pain through gritted teeth and tried her best not to move as the pain throbbed through her body.

The third volley was fired. No escape.

May sensed the shells approaching from the sky. Ten came in at a high angle, ten at a medium angle, and ten at a low angle. In her head, she counted down the time to impact as she tried to think of a way to escape the destruction that approached from the sky.

Eight. No plausible ideas came.

Seven. Still no ideas.

Six. Nothing.

Five. She felt the death coming her way.

Four. But if she could feel it...

Three. ...then she could...

Two. May squeezed her eyes shut as she put all of her efforts into making her half-baked plan come to fruition.

One.

Zero.

Nothing.

May opened her eyes slowly and glanced around without moving her head. Hovering just feet above the ground were thirty artillery shells scattered across the target area. Not really sure what to do with the shells, she brought them all to her and set them gently down in the crater that she was laying in.

May smiled. It had worked. If she's could feel the shells, then she could move them...or in this case, stop them from moving.

She was not sure what to do with the shells at first, so she turned her attention to her Overseer.

Again, May spotted the artillery, but now there were thirty vehicles. The original ten self-propelled artillery vehicles were raising their guns to begin a third attack while the twenty new vehicles sped towards her location. Tanks.

Now she had a use for the thirty un-detonated artillery rounds. May picked up twenty of the rounds from her stockpile and directed them towards the twenty incoming vehicles.

While she waited for her retaliation to impact, she took a closer look at the incoming vehicles. At their current speed, she figured that they would be at the airport, or the place where it used to be, in just over ten minutes.

Her attention was drawn back to the artillery when they fired the first of what would have been three more volleys. May was not about to let them fire a second.

With help from the Overseer, May stopped each of the ten incoming rounds. Then she returned them to their owners, and watched in triumph as the self propelled artillery were hit with their own shells.

May then turned her attention back to the tanks. The rounds that she had sent their way were almost upon them. She directed each round simultaneously onto an incoming tank. She made sure to bring the rounds in at a very steep angle because armor on the top of tanks is weaker than armor on the sides.

Moments later, the tanks were hit hard. Several of the tanks were completely demolished due to the explosions setting off stored ammunition, but for the most part, the tanks were simply disabled. It was likely that the crews of all of the tanks were killed by the shockwave of the blasts, and any who survived would likely die soon from having ruptured organs and other life-threatening injuries.

May had ten more rounds to use in case of another attack, but a scan of the surrounding area did not indicate an immediate threat.

After all of the action finished, the Nydus Worm she had ordered to surface sprung up from the ground next to the smoking remains of the enemy artillery.

Relieved and comforted, but also slightly annoyed by the lateness of the Nydus Worm, May ordered one thousand Raptor Strain Zerglings to come through. May had begun exploring the various strains of her Swarm shortly after her alliance with Israel, and she found some of the strains useful...while others were downright creepy, even for the Zerg.

The Raptor strain of Zergling had proven to be useful for quickly traversing the cliffs of the Middle East, as it could scale the cliffs with ease.

She also ordered five hundred Vile Strain Roaches through the Nydus Worm. Although the Corpser Strain was probably the best decision strategically due to its ability to spawn Roachlings from the bodies of enemies, May could not get over the disturbing thought of human bodies being used as food. Thus, she never hatched any. Although not the best option, the Vile Strain was certainly not useless. Infantry would be killed instantly by being doused in Roach acid, while tanks and other armoured vehicles were slowed down by the microbes in the acid.

She then ordered four hundred Hydralisks to come to her position.

Though slightly tempted due to paranoia of a another attack, May resolved not to send any of her Torrasque Strain Ultralisks to the fight. She had chosen to hatch Torresques because she did not like to waste anything, especially not something as resource heavy as an Ultralisk. If killed in battle, it would form an egg around itself and be reborn in a few hours.

Lastly, May ordered one hundred Creeper Strain Swarm Hosts to her location. The Creeper Strain would produce creep when they root, thus giving any Zerg in the area food for prolonged deployments. Though marvelous, her Swarm's members could not live without food, and the highly consistent nutrient content of Creep allowed for a healthy and indefinitely sustainable food supply to grow virtually anywhere.

Once done destroying everything and giving commands, May relaxed. Twenty minutes earlier, she had been relaxing on top of an air traffic control tower, now she had six broken bones and a fear of moving anywhere.

She contacted Matilda.

"Matilda, we were just attacked. I am injured. I need you here. See if there is anywhere that the Israelis need help, then come here."

"Yes, my queen. Should I explain the reason for my absence to the Israelis?"

"I don't care. If they ask, then tell them."

May waited for a reply, but because she had nothing to do, she was left to endure the pain of her injuries.

"My queen, the Israelis say that it would help greatly if you were to attack here." Matilda said while sending a mental image of a map.

"Thanks."

Now, she could distract herself from the pain.

May looked through the orbiting Overseer and found the place where the Israelis needed help. It was just over forty miles north north-west of her position near one of the biggest cities in Israel: Be'er Sheva.

It had been occupied by I.S.I.S., but the sudden lack of air support over the city had allowed the Israelis to push them out over the past two weeks. Now I.S.I.S. had been pushed out of all but the southern outskirts of the city.

May began ordering her nearby forces around. She first ordered the Swarm Hosts to burrow in a line between her and the Nydus Worm. The creep they would provide would allow Matilda to get to her sooner. Next, she ordered half of her Zerglings, Roaches, and Hydralisks along with fifty Lurkers to assist the Israelis in Be'er Sheva.

Her forces had not yet exited the Nydus Worm, but she estimated that they would arrive in Be'er Sheva in about one and a half hours. The rest of her forces would arrive that the airport in about ten minutes, and Matilda would likely be with her in about twenty.

In an effort to distract herself from her pain, May began micro-managing her swarm. She was not particularly good at it, but it was practice. She had no need to fear a few losses due to her inept tactics. Grand strategy was where she excelled...or at least she hoped so. She had left that part up to the Israelis thus far.

* * *

 **Hello everyone! I have an announcement to make. Well two actually. And an apology. You probably aren't going to like the first one though. Don't worry, I am definitely going to finish this story. Here it goes. Don't hate me.**

 **First announcement: I am going to take a break from writing this story for a little bit. I have had a hard time motivating myself to write for...a while. Here is why: I have got lots of other ideas for stories that are banging around in my head, and when I start writing for this story, I keep getting sidetracked. Once I get to where I can focus again, I will start updating again. I imagine that it will be a month or two before I start posting again, but I definitely will start posting again. Unless I die. Which would be worse for me than for you, so I am not going to apologize in advance for dying.**

 **Second announcement: I have decided to make this a multi-book series. This book will primarily be focused on the Zerg and their growth on earth. The second will not focus on the Zerg very much. I want to say more about the second book, but...spoilers of course.**

 **Apology: to anybody from Israel who may end up reading this. Sorry for invading your country. I have plans for another nation and it will probably be worse, so maybe that will cheer you up. :)**


	19. Chapter 19

May flew over her forces as they approached Be'er Sheva. Matilda had healed her over an hour earlier, and now she was headed back to Tel Aviv to report to Amos.

May flew high above of her one thousand strong attack force as they engaged the enemy. Soon, Israel would own Be'er Sheba, the city of Mitspe Ramon, and its airport once more.

* * *

An hour later, May landed next to the warehouse outside of Tel Aviv. It had become the base of operations for all Zerg activity. Here, the Israelis could communicate with all of their forces and the Prime Minister.

She walked through one of the doors that was large enough for her to fit through and walked up to Amos who was watching over the many T.V. screens within the warehouse.

"How did things go at the airport?" Amos asked.

"Most of the Roaches I took with me are dead, but the airport is ours. It is in bad shape though. The Saudi Arabians launched an artillery strike that destroyed all of the buildings and dug craters in the runway."

"It can be repaired. With that airport shut down, along with your attack on the enemy lines outside of Be'er Sheva, we should have our forces at Mitspe Ramon within a week."

"Where do you need us until then?" May asked.

"Our ambassador to the U.N. says that the U.N. security council wants to meet with you. The U.N. is very influential. Both the War Counsel and the majority of the Knesset are in favor of you going."

"What can I expect from the U.N. if I go?" May asked.

"They will probably want to know about your intentions, plans, and military power."

"I am not sure how much I like that last one. Are any of our enemies members of the U.N.?"

"Most of them are." Amos replied with a subtle hint of disgust.

"Why should I meet with our enemies and tell them our military strength?"

"The world is getting anxious. They want to know what the Zerg are and why they are helping Israel. We have kept a tight lid on any information about you, and other nations don't like it. Telling them a little bit about yourself could get a nation or two on our side. Not going could do the opposite. You also may gain some ground on becoming a nation."

"Then I don't have much of a choice."

"Welcome to the world of being the small fish in the big pond." Amos said before walking off to make a phone call, leaving May to worry about meeting with the U.N.. She had never done anything that had to do with politics before, and she did not like the idea. What if she said something wrong? What if she said something that would make more enemies?

May changed her focus to managing her swarm. The only opinion that mattered to the Zerg was hers. Simple. Efficient. The exact opposite of politics.

The rest of the day was spent coordinating with the Israelis in the warehouse.

Amos returned that night to tell her that a meeting had been scheduled for one week from then. He also assured her that she would receive training on U.N. proceedings.

* * *

Over the following week, May was taught how to answer difficult questions, how to answer a question without giving more information than needed, and how to avoid being trapped in her own words. By the time she was scheduled to leave, she felt much more confident in her ability to not make a fool of herself in front of the U.N..

She would be riding in a large C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. The flight was seventeen and a half hours from Tel Aviv to New York with a stop at Amsterdam to refuel.

The flight was long, and would have been boring if she hadn't had tens of thousands of her children to keep her company at all times...even if they were not all intelligent enough to hold a conversation.

After the uneventful flight, May walked down the ramp of the large plane at the JFK airport less than twenty miles from Manhattan. Looking around the tarmac, May saw something that she did not like. A semi-truck. In front and behind the truck were at least a dozen police cars.

May stepped onto the tarmac followed by two Israeli soldiers and two Zerglings.

"Hey." Someone said in Arabic. May looked down to see a short blonde woman in her mid-forties with hair down to her shoulders. "Unless there's another dragon around here, we need to get you to the U.N. headquarters. Follow me." The woman said as she turned around and began walking away. Through the Arabic, May could tell that the woman had a strong southern accent.

"Okay." May replied. Nobody had been quite that straightforward with her in a long time. May hopped once to catch up with the woman before settling for a slow walk. At least, it was a slow walk for May. The short woman was speed walking.

"My name is Stephanie. I will be your guide and translator while you are here." The woman said.

"Why do I need..." She was going to ask why she needed a translator, but realised that she had not spoken to anyone in Israel in English. May switched over to English. "I can speak English."

"Well that makes my job one heck of a lot easier now doesn't it?" The two approached the semi-truck, and Stephanie stopped.

"Don't tell me that I have to ride in the back of this thing."

"Well look at you! Showing up here and surprising me with speaking English, and without an accent! That makes me smile." Stephanie said as she smiled up at May for a moment before getting serious again. "Sorry, but it was the best we could do in such a short amount of time. A couple of days ago, the city decided that they didn't want a dragon flyin' around here. Go figure. It won't be fun, but we've got a good driver. Just don't move all sudden-like. Ya might tip us over."

"I doubt that I will be able to move at all." May said with distaste.

"Just hop in and get it over with. Waitin' around here ain't gunna make it go away." The woman stated with a bit of attitude.

May looked down at the little woman who was staring at her with an eyebrow raised and hands oh her hips.

"You certainly aren't the kind of person I am used to." May said as she started getting ready to back into the open trailer of the semi-truck.

"Is that good or bad?"

"It is just kind of funny. I have had grown men trained for war that have trouble looking me in the eye."

"Well I guess that makes me either brave or crazy, and I'm not brave. Now get in there. I'm not getting paid to stand around... Then again, I'm mostly getting paid to translate."

May lifted her tail into the semi-truck, and her back legs soon followed. Once she was halfway in, Stephanie interrupted.

"What made you want to go in backwards?"

"I can either go in backwards, or come out backwards. This way, I don't have to guess what is behind me."

"Alright. Just wondering."

After May crammed into the semi-truck, her two Zerglings hopped in with her. Then the truck driver came around and closed the door.

The tiny semi-truck trailer was extremely uncomfortable. Add to that the fact that it was pitch black inside and May firmly decided that she would not be riding it back to the airport. She would walk if she had to. The ride to her destination was just over thirty minutes, but it felt more line an hour and thirty minutes.

When the truck finally came to a stop and parked, May was relieved beyond measure. She heard the door get unlatched, and was met with blinding light when the door opened. May lowered her head and raised her front paw to block the bright sunlight as her eyes quickly adjusted.

Once her eyes were accustomed to the sunlight, she lowered her paw. In front of her were dozens of reporters standing and staring in silence. Awkward. May climbed out of the back of the semi-truck trailer with her two Zerglings and looked around.

To her left was a large building complex with three buildings that she could see. The entrance to the complex was about ten yards away, and appeared to be a restricted area at the moment. The building on the left was about four stories tall and had a reddish brown dome poking out of the roof. The center building was very tall, about forty stories, and looked like a huge glass wall. The building on the right was three stories, but it was as tall as a four story building. The bottom floor had a much higher roof than most buildings, giving it extra height.

May looked back down at the silent reporters to see Stephanie beckoning her to follow. Stephanie began making her way to the building on the left, and as May and her Zerglings followed, the crowd parted, giving May a wide berth.

Once Stephanie and May were past the border of the restricted area and all of the reporters were behind them, May dropped her head to speak to Stephanie.

"That was awkward."

Sephanie slowly nodded in agreement while looking ahead.

The two made their way into the building through a heavily guarded double door meant for loading and unloading supplies. As Stephanie led May and her two Zerglings through the halls, that May found to be very narrow, she told May everything that she needed to know for the meeting.

"The meeting starts in an hour. There are fifteen nations represented by the security council at any given time. Five nations are permanent members while the other ten are temporary. The representatives from the five permanent members will be directly in front of you with the temporary members seated on the right and left. The five permanent members are Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, and the United States..." Stephanie continued telling her a flood of information while they made their way to a waiting area. The waiting area was just an empty room with a chair and a T.V. in the corner. Everything else had been removed to better accommodate May.

For the next half hour, Stephanie continued talking about each of the members of the security council.

"Okay. That was the last council member." Stephanie said once she finished discussing the members. "Do you have your speech ready?"

"Speech?" May replied as she narrowed her eyes at Stephanie.

"Did you not receive a copy of the schedule?"

"We requested one, but we never received it. I'm assuming that it says something about a speech."

"You are expected to give a thirty minute speech about the Zerg as a whole, followed by a Q&A about your intentions in the Middle East."

"Any tips?" May asked with a calm and steady voice that did not reflect her mental state.

"Have you ever given a speech before?" May shook her head no. Stephanie sighed and shook her head. "Get their attention in the introduction, have two to five main points, and sum everything up at the end. Tell em what you're gonna tell em, tell em, and then tell em what you told em." Stephanie said with a worried look.

"Okay. It sounds almost easy when you put it that way."

"You have less than thirty minutes to think about what you want to say. Make the most of it."

May shuddered. She had never spoken in front of a group of people before, but she figured that it should not be very hard to talk about the Zerg. She knew everything that there was to know about the Zerg, so all that she had to do was tell the Security Council what she knew. Some of what she knew.

As May was organizing her speech in her head, she began to wonder if her swarm could help. She reached out to half of her Overlords and connected their minds to her own. Overlord's brains were designed to compute the efficiency of a situation, and May figured that this could help with her speech.

She did not try to figure out how much her Overlords helped her think. Instead, she went back to forming her speech.

She needed several topics. There may be enemies listening to the speech, so avoid numbers, weaknesses, and goals. Give information about the Swarm as a race. Psionic connection, adaptability, and growth.

May continued forming her speech until her thoughts were interrupted my Stephanie.

"Dragon, it is time." She said.

As Stephanie walked away into the hallway, May followed.

After a short walk, the two came to a set of double doors and Stephanie motioned for May to wait.

Several minutes later, a man opened the double doors and led May through them. Behind the doors was a large round room with a high domed roof. For the first time since entering the building, May could stand at full height.

In front of her was three long curved tables in the shape of a "C" or horseshoe with May at the opening of the "C." At the table directly across from May sat the five permanent members of the U.N. security council, and at the tables on the top and bottom of the "C," or May's left and right, sat the ten temporary members of the council with five on either side. Behind each member stood someone who May presumed to be a translator.

The man who led May into the room brought May near the center of the "C," and walked to the edge of the room.

The man sitting directly in front of her began to speak in a language that May did not understand. Then the man behind him spoke, but this time in Arabic.

"Hello. I am the president of the U.N. security council. I have just received news that you can speak English. Is that correct?" The man who appeared to be a translator said.

"That is correct." May replied in Arabic.

The council president spoke again, but in English. "All those in favor of holding this meeting in English say 'aye.'"

"Aye." The fourteen other voices said in unison.

"Then we shall hold this meeting in English. All translators are dismissed."

At that, the sixteen translators exited, and May realised that Stephanie had been standing next to her up to that point.

"You may begin." The council president stated once all of the translators had left.

May took a deep breath to steady her nerves.

"Good afternoon." She began, "I understand that it would be customary for me to give you my name. However, I have been called 'dragon' by all those who have addressed me up to this point, for I have no name. Going without a name would be, as I understand it, degrading to you humans.

"You humans cherish your identity. Your individuality is what makes you human, and your names give you a greater sense of your humanity. For the Zerg, the opposite is true. I do not need a name because I am not an individual. I have no name outside of the Zerg because I am only my position within the Zerg.

"The Zerg is not a group of individuals, it is a single being with many members. I am the head of this being. The lack of individuality within the Zerg is what makes a Zerg, a Zerg. The Zerg operate as a single unit. One force with one mind.

"In essence, the Zerg is everything that humanity is not. All Zerg are of one mind, but each human has his own mind. The Zerg strive for perfection at the cost of self, but humans strive for self at the cost of perfection. I cannot claim that the Zerg is better than humanity, and I cannot claim that humanity is better than the Zerg. We are very different, and our differences make this day, and this meeting, particularly important.

"Today, I hope that we can look past our differences and to the future. A future of peace and cooperation. However, I cannot expect you to look past our differences if you do not know what they are.

"There are three major things that differentiate the Zerg from humanity. These things being: the unity of the Zerg, the Zerg's ability to adapt, and, perhaps most significant to you, the reason for our rapid growth of the Zerg over the past months..."

* * *

 **In the words of the Dragoon: "I have returned."**

 **So during Christmas and the beginning of a new year and a new semester of school (I have to take courses already. Yes, it sucks.) I have worked on this story some more. The second to last chapter to book one is in the works at the moment, and I hope to make the final chapter the longest one yet. (I also plan on having a "theme" for the last chapter, but I am...musically challenged...so I will be putting the "theme's" name at the beginning of the final chapter, and you guys can look it up on YouTube.)**

 **After I finish book 1, I won't be starting on book 2 right away. I am write in the same way I paint walls. I start one one thing, then move to something else without finishing it, then I go to something else, get distracted by some other part of the wall. I eventually finish everything, but it is not done in an orderly fashion. One story gets partly written, then the next gets worked on a bit, then I work on something else, ect... I currently am working on fourteen different stories, this one included. I have only put out things for this story and another, but there are twelve other stories in various stages of completion. (Many of which will not be finished because I don't really like them) This is, by far, the closest story to being finished.**

 **Thanks for reading everyone, and sorry for the off time.**


	20. Chapter 20

**Thank you Liara Evans and anonymous person for pointing out the formatting errors in Chapter 4. I recently changed a couple of minor errors in the chapter, so that must have caused the issues.**

* * *

May went over her topics, remaining careful to only discuss the strengths of the Zerg. After giving as much information

as she deemed necessary, May concluded her speech in a nice summary. She finished on time, and her speech was followed by many questions about her intentions in the Middle East.

The only question that she answered in a straight forward manner was about the birth of Zerg forces. She made it perfectly clear that only Hatcheries, Lairs, and Hives could produce the larvae that the Swarm relied on. One weakness. That is the only one that she would tell them of.

After all of this was taken care of, the topic of The Marie Byrd Lands being officially made into a recognized nation was brought forward by the council president. This was by far the shortest part of the meeting, as the idea was only mentioned so that it would be discussed by the council behind closed doors after the meeting.

The council was dismissed shortly after, and May exited the room the way she came in.

"How'd it go?" Stephanie asked as soon as May exited the meeting room.

"I have no idea. Everything is a bit of a blur." May replied in a calm voice that somehow did not reflect the nervousness she felt.

"Don't worry, I am sure that you did just fine." Stephanie said while flashing a smile.

Stephanie quietly led May through the empty halls of the building to the back double doors that May had to squeeze through once more. Once outside, May stretched her wings out wide while loudly popping her neck and back.

Stephanie shivered and wrinkled her nose.

"I don't mean to sound rude, but that was disgustin'." Stephanie commented with a queasy look on her face.

"Well, if you were in my...shoes? Can I say shoes even if I don't wear them? Claws? Paws?" May began to look herself over for something to replace shoes in her statement. "Carapace? No, that sounds weird. Scales? Scales... If you were in my scales today, that would signal freedom, and you would love that sound."

May looked over to see Stephanie giving her a strange look.

"What?" May asked.

"You." Stephanie replied without looking away.

"What about me?" May asked as she began looking herself over for anything strange.

"You aren't what I would have expected from a big ol' fire breathin' dragon." Stephanie said as she walked away towards the entrance to the building complex.

"I would think not." May stated as though Stephanie had overlooked something obvious. "I don't breathe fire. I would be completely different if I could breathe fire." May hopped to catch up to Stephanie and kept pace beside her.

"Oh, why don't you just get into the truck so that I can get rid of you." Stephanie said with good humor.

"Can I not get in the truck? Maybe I can just walk." May said in an attempt to avoid a cramped ride.

"That is a worse idea than flying back. You'd be swarmed by nagging reporters tryin' to get anything and everything they can out of ya."

May began to think of ways to avoid getting back into the simi-truck trailer. "I have an idea that doesn't involve flying or walking." May stated.

"Getting in the trailer?" Stephanie asked.

May stopped, sat down, and closed her eyes to concentrate. "No, something else. If it works, then I will see you at the airport." May decided to mimic the psionic ability of Leviathans to warp herself to the airport. May opened her eyes and picked up the two Zerglings that had accompanied her for most of her trip.

"We aren't going to the airport." Stephanie stated.

May didn't move an inch.

"We should go if we want to be on time."

May peeked an eye open. "Well, that didn't work."

"What didn't work?" Stephanie asked.

"It doesn't matter." May said as she stood and walked over to the semi-truck.

"Where are we going now?" May asked as she backed into the truck.

"To a joint interview with the CIA and FBI in Philadelphia."

May frowned. "How long is the drive to Philadelphia?"

At this, Stephanie smiled. "We won't be driving for more than thirty minutes. Now get in."

May thought that the ride to Philadelphia would have been longer, but she was not going to complain. Little did she know that she would not be riding to Philadelphia.

May backed into the trailer like she had done before and her Zerglings hopped in with her. The door to the trailer was closed, and May began the ride to an airport just outside of New York city.

The ride was just as unpleasant as the one before.

The truck stopped and May heard, and felt, the transmission move into park. They had arrived. May was hoping that the unpleasant ride would be worth it in the long run.

She heard footsteps approaching the trailer door followed by the latch being opened. The door quickly rose, and May was forced to squint for a moment before her eyes adjusted to the sudden increase in light.

Stephanie was standing to the side with a big grin on her face.

"What are you so happy about?" May asked as she stepped out of the trailer with her Zerglings. She looked around as she stretched and quickly noticed that they were at another airport.

"I thought that we were going to Philadelphia and not to the airport." May stated, voicing her confusion.

"We are, but not in this truck, and this ain't the same airport. The drive to Philly would be over two hours long." Stephanie replied.

"We are going by plane?" May asked.

"I am going by helicopter. You are going on your own power. How fast can you fly?"

May smiled.

"Are you smiling?" Stephanie asked as the grin that she was wearing dropped.

"Yeah."

"Never do that again. It's terrifying."

May's smile fell.

"Alright. Let's go." Stephanie said as she began walking away from the truck. May fast walked until she was next to Stephanie.

"I really do need to know how fast you can fly though. We assumed that you could fly at least forty miles per hour, but it will help the pilots if know how fast to go before we take off."

"I never tried to test my limits like that. I was too busy doing other things. I'll bet that I can go faster than forty miles per hour though."

Stephanie, May, and the two Zerglings continued in silence for a while before Stephanie broke the silence.

"I have been meaning to ask, why such a small guard? I would have thought that you would have brought at least ten...things with you." Stephanie said gesturing to the Zerglings.

May chuckled. "They're called Zerglings. I wasn't going to bring any guards with me at all, but I was told that going alone would be unusual. Bringing one Zergling would make it seem overly important, and bringing something other than Zerglings would mean bringing something slower. Also, Zerglings come in pairs. They are the smallest and fastest ground Zerg, and I wanted something small enough to fit through human buildings easily."

"But why didn't you want any guards? There are plenty of people who want you dead...no offence." Stephanie replied.

"It's fine. I just don't like having to keep up with them. They tend to be curious, so if I take my eye off of them for a while, there is no telling what they'll get into."

The two rounded the corner of a building and were faced with two helicopters, one red and one blue. The pilots of the helicopters were talking, but stopped upon noticing May and Stephanie.

"Hello!" One of the pilots said to Stephanie. "This must be the dragon."

"That is correct." May replied.

The pilot looked slightly surprised that May could speak English and muttered something about it before he recomposed himself. "Give us a moment to request takeoff." The pilot turned and faced Stephanie. "While we get ready, why don't you go ahead an get into the blue chopper? It will be just a minute."

The pilot then turned back to May. "When we are cleared for takeoff, I will be lifting off first in the blue helicopter. You will be second, and James, piloting the red helicopter, will be third. If you follow me the entire flight, everything should go just fine. Since we won't be able to talk when we get in the air, you will need to stay directly between James and me."

"By the way, how fast can you fly?" He asked.

May thought for a moment. Because she couldn't emulate the Leviathan's psyionic ability to jump through space, she figured that she wouldn't be able to emulate the Scourge's and Mutalisk's psy-propelled flight. They co

uld fly at around MACH 3-4.

"We are about to find out." She stated.

The pilot shrugged. "Just say directly between the helicopters, and we'll slow down if you can't keep up."

The pilot then turned around and walked to the blue helicopter.

It occurred to May that the pilot did not seem to be as frightened by her as most people did. The same could be said of Stephanie. Perhaps she was less intimidating now that she was not constantly stressing over the war with I.S.I.S. Speaking English again for the first time in months had likely improved her mood also.

May smiled as the helicopter rotors began to spin up. This would be an interesting flight.

* * *

 **Sorry for the short chapter. :(**

 **So...I had about three paragraphs of stuff in this bold portion written out, but I backspaced it all in favor of something shorter. This story is in the top fifty StarCraft stories in terms of reviews, favorites, and followers (M rated stories included.) I did not expect this when I started writing this story, and you guys kept me from abandoning this story when I lost my phone a while back (because pretty much this entire story was written on a phone.) I lost a lot of stuff for this story and didn't want to rewrite what I had lost. You guys kept me on track though, and the end of book one draws nigh as a result. Thank you.**


	21. Chapter 21

May landed next to the blue helicopter that she had been following for a while. She was too focused on maintaining the correct speed to pay attention on the passing of time. Although psionic teleportation seemed to beyond her grasp for whatever reason, she was able to fly as fast as the helicopters without any problems when she tried to emulate other Zerg fliers psionic propelled flight.

Once both helicopters were grounded and winding down, Stephanie hopped out of the blue one and May's two Zerglings hopped out of the red one.

"It's a good thing you can keep up with the choppers. You can get started early." Stephanie shouted over the helicopters.

May nodded and followed Stephanie across the roof of the building that they had landed on. Stephanie walked to the edge of the building and pointed down.

"You can get into the building from down there. I'll be taking an elevator, and I won't see you again until tomorrow. You will be staying here for the night. Nobody could find a hotel that would take dragons." Stephanie joked as the sun neared the horizon.

"Does that make the hotels racist?"

Stephanie just smiled and walked away.

"I could give you a lift. It would be faster than the elevator." May called.

"I'll keep my feet on the ground for this one." Stephanie responded with a shake of her head.

May shrugged. "Your loss."

With that, May picked up her two Zerglings and jumped off of the roof to glide down to what appeared to be the back of the large office building.

When May landed, she was surprised to find that the back of the office building had a small warehouse on the first floor.

Heavily armed guards were standing by the warehouse door, and shortly after she landed, the door rose up to reveal the inside of the small warehouse part of the building.

There were many large shelves pushed against each other in a corner of the room that were probably in the center of the large room most of the time. In the back right of the room was a small staircase that led out of the warehouse portion of the building. Desks and stacks of wooden pallets lined the left wall of the room. Finally, on the back wall of the small warehouse was a sign that read "Dunder Mifflin Inc, Paper Company." It was then that May recognized someone standing a short distance away.

"John Dillinger?" May asked.

"You know me?" He asked as he and another man approached her.

"From the memories of another." May replied.

"That's interesting and very convenient. Let's get started. This is Timothy McGhee with the CIA. Both of us will interview you, but we will be interviewing you separately."

Timothy stepped forward. He was a tall, bald man with a mustache, a perpetual frown, and when he spoke, his voice was like sandpaper.

"I will go first. Come in." Timothy commanded before turning to face the room.

"Everyone out!" Timothy shouted. "That includes you, snowflake." He said while gesturing to John.

"Just hurry up." John replied as he walked off.

The warehouse was cleared of everyone except for May, Timothy, and the two Zerglings.

"These things need to leave also." Timothy said as he gestured to the Zerglings.

"They stay." May replied.

"This is American soil you are standing on, and you are a guest here. If I say they leave, then they leave." Timothy stated with frustration in his voice.

May narrowed his eyes at Timothy and promptly ordered an overseer to make it's way over her location from orbit; she also ordered a Nydus Worm to begin making its way to the street in front of the office building/mini-warehouse. Something felt wrong about his request.

"They take orders from me and only me. Have you forgotten who I am, little human?"

"I represent the largest intelligence agency in the world. We have agents worldwide. Nothing happens without us knowing."

"Do not challenge us. The Zerg managed to escape this country in less than two months of existence while surrounded by hundreds of guards. You know nothing of the Zerg. Everything that you think you know is only half true, and everything you don't know will remain hidden from you until I personally decide to reveal it to you. There are no traitors among us, for we are of one mind. My mind. You know less about me than you know about the Zerg as a whole. You don't know where I came from. You don't know what I am willing to do in order to complete my goal. You don't know the reach that I have, nor do you know the way I wage war, for I have done according to what Israel has asked, not according to what I would do on my own. You have not seen what we are capable of, and you are forced to meet me here so that you can ask me about these things. If you really want my Zerglings to leave this room, then I will leave with them and you and your agency will be the last to know the answered to your many many questions. So I suggest that you stop trying to control us as your kind did when we were first born."

"Alright then." Timothy said after a moment of silence.

May released her control of her Zerglings and let their curiosity take over so that they could search the place while she talked to Timothy.

"How are you getting your forces from Antarctica to Israel?"

"Logistics." May said as she tried not to smile.

May could have sworn that she saw Timothy sneer when she said that.

"Where are your forces deployed worldwide?" He asked.

"Mostly Antarctica. They are moved to Israel on an as needed basis."

"And what do you have in Israel?"

"The forces in Israel are enough to keep I.S.I.S. at bay. That is what Israel needs, and if they don't need our help anymore, then we will leave Israel if and when they ask us to."

Timothy kept asking questions that May wasn't comfortable answering, and May kept answering his questions with vague generalizations. Finally, whether because he was frustrated or because he ran out of questions, May didn't know, Timothy finished and left up the stairs in the back of the small warehouse.

Moments later, John opened the door and descended the stairs. He started talking as he approached May.

"I'm only here to talk about May Flowers. Do you know where she is?". He asked.

"I know exactly where she is. We all do."

"I need to know."

"She is residing in Broodland." May answers.

"What happened to her when she was taken?" John asked.

"She was drugged and unconscious when they took her to Mexico. From there, they flew her to Iraq. We got her out and found that I.S.I.S. had taken her. From there, we escorted her to Broodland where she has been since."

John thought for a moment. "Is that why you are protecting Israel? Because of May?"

"Because she brought us life. Without her, we would not be here. I.S.I.S. is a threat to her, and we will keep her safe until they have been destroyed."

"Why not just wipe them out? I am told that you have the ability to do so." John replied.

"And risk the world striking out against us in fear? How would that keep May safe?"

John frowned. He looked troubled as he stared at some point miles away. Deeply troubled.

After several moments of silence, May spoke up.

"I would like to speak to May's parents on her behalf." She said quietly.

John snapped out of his thoughts as he processed what the dragon had said.

"Wha- oh. Um, I... I can do that." John said before pulling out his phone. "Would you like to be left alone?"

May nodded in affirmation.

"I don't have any more questions for you. You will be staying the night here and leaving for

John dialed the number and put the phone to his ear.

"Hello. Is this Mrs. Flowers?"

...

"I have someone who wants to speak to you concerning your daughter."

...

"Yes ma'am."

John put the phone on speaker, set it on the ground, and left the room.

"Hello?" The voice on the phone nervously called as John was leaving.

"Is this Lauren Flowers?" May asked.

"This is Lauren, yes."

"If there are any questions you have regarding your daughter, ask them now."

"Where is she!?" She asked hurriedly.

"She is safe in Antarctica."

"An-Antarctica?" Lauren asked as her tone changed to confusion.

"It is the safest place for her at the moment. Were she safe in America, I would have brought here here when we found her. She has been working with us, and she has been a great help to us."

"When can she come home?"

"I'm not sure." May said as she began trying to figure out what would need to happen before she could go back to her normal life. I.S.I.S. would have to be gone to keep her from being kidnapped again or assassinated outright. No doubt, they knew that she was important to the Zerg by now, even if they hadn't known before she was kidnapped. She would also have to somehow govern the Zerg while keeping up with daily life. It would be hard, but she cou-

"Hello?" May's mother asked over the phone.

"I'm sorry. There are many things that must happen before May can return to America. I don't think she will be able to in the near future."

"Is she doing alright? Is she liking it there?"

John walked out of the warehouse, through the offices, and out of the building. In the small parking lot was a car with Timothy in the drivers seat. John got in on the passenger side and Timothy put the vehicle into reverse to leave.

The two pulled out of the parking lot wordlessly and drove a couple of blocks down the road and into a parking lot. Timothy parked the car facing the building. Neither of them were aware of the Overseer watching from miles above.

Timothy pulled out a phone and speed dialed a number.

"Execute Operation Hotshot." Timothy said into the phone.

...

"Alpha November Tango India Bravo India Oscar."

...

"Understood." Timothy said as he hung up and checked his watch.

"Well," Timothy said as he leaned back his car's seat, but kept the phone in his hand, "we have about twenty five minutes."

"I still don't like it." John replied.

"You don't have to."

"That doesn't make it right." John stated.

"It isn't about what is right."

John sighed and shook his head. "What is it about then?"

Timothy looked over at John. "If you are going to get in the way, then I suggest you tell me now."

"It isn't that." John said with another sigh. "I just feel like we could have done something to keep ourselves out of this."

"We couldn't have done anything. Perhaps if you were able to keep the Zerg contained in the first place, then we wouldn't be here. Given that we still don't know how they ended up in Antarctica, I doubt anyone could've kept them from leaving."

"My point exactly." John stated.

"What?"

"There's so much that we don't know. How can we be sure of anything regarding the Zerg?"

"We can't. That's why we're here." Timothy said with a shrug.

"And what if we fail because of something that we couldn't foresee?"

Timothy paused and thought for a moment. "Then this will be an interesting week for the world."

John chuckled and relaxed slightly. "I have a feeling that it will be an interesting week no matter what."

John and Timothy sat in relative silence for about twenty minutes longer with Timothy checking his watch frequently.

"Get ready." Timothy said to John.

John opened the car's glove box and pulled out a small remote.

Timothy's phone rang, and he quickly answered. John waited for Timothy to give the order.

Timothy looked over to John. "Pull it."

John pressed the button.

* * *

 **Sorry about the long wait for this one. School has been rough on my time. Anyway, the next chapter will (probably) be the longest one yet. Because of how long the next chapter will be and how much time school has been eating, it will probably be a while before it goes up.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	22. Chapter 22

**.Operation Hotshot**

* * *

Two weeks after the hatching of the egg in Tel Aviv.

* * *

"Madame President," the Secretary of the Treasury Sheryl Sanderg said, "the Zerg have left us with little choice as to what we should do. The situation in the Middle East was bad enough when the war started, but now..."

"What are you suggesting?" Secretary of State Bill Burns asked.

"We can't afford to let the Zerg take the Middle East. All of their infrastructure would be useless with those beasts over there." Sanders said.

"We don't know what the Zerg want, and we can't act on information that doesn't exist. I think it is prudent to prepare for just in case the Zerg to try to take the Middle East, but to act so soon could undermine our relations with Israel and gain us nothing." Tom Donilon, the Director of National Intelligence stated.

"I don't think you understand just how the loss of the Middle East will affect this country." The Secretary of the Treasury countered. "At best, we are looking at gas prices around six dollars per gallon nationwide for an indefinite period of time. At worst, we could end up in one of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."

"I think that, first and foremost, we need to start turning to alternative oil and energy sources." President Hillary Clinton stated. "If we can start moving towards the right direction economically, then the shift of losing the Middle East will affect us less. Until then, we will start making plans to prevent that from happening. If we are put into a situation where we need to take decisive action against the Zerg, then we need to be fully capable of doing so."

"We are going to need to divert a massive amount of resources to effectively monitor them." Donilon said.

"And we are going to need a lot of elbow room to adapt to their exponential growth." Defense Secretary Michele Floury stated.

"We will need to be flexible. Of that, we can be certain." Clinton said. "If they are capable of rapid, covert, long distance travel, then we need to be prepared for them to appear anywhere. More than likely, they will choose the least hospitable and most concealed areas they can find to set up shop. They may already have.

"Something of this scale will not go unnoticed by the U.N. so we will need to seek their approval on all of this. Hopefully, we can get them to see the seriousness of the Zerg threat."

For hours, the group of top officials in the American government discussed their plans. For weeks, the U.N. debated on what to do. For months, plans were created and replaced. The final iteration of their plan was to destroy the Zerg the moment they stepped out of line. To squash them like bugs. Operation Hotshot was established behind closed doors, but its consequences, if acted upon, would mark the most destructive day in history.

* * *

November 20, 2017. 12:46 A.M. UTC.

Local time: Classified.

Location: The Atlantic Ocean.

"Pressurize tubes one through twelve to normal launch depth." The captain's voice commanded through the headset.

"Pressurize tubes one through twelve to normal launch depth, aye aye sir." The operator replied.

"Weapons con, ready tubes one through twelve." Came the unmistakable voice of the captain.

"Tubes one through twelve ready."

"Weapons con, you have permission to fire."

"Weapons armed. Initiating fire."

"Initiating fire." The other operators confirmed.

"Fire one." The captain ordered.

The operator pushed the designated button.

"One away."

There was a moment of silence as the next missile's target was put into the system.

"Fire two."

The next button was pressed.

"Two away."

Silence.

"Fire three."

"Three away."

Silence.

Over the course of several minutes, a dozen missiles were launched into the sky.

"Fire twelve."

"Twelve away."

"Weapons con, permission to fire has been removed." The captain said.

The operator took a deep breath as the reality of what just happened began to sink in. Meanwhile, twelve nuclear warheads soared through the sky and reached up to touch the edge of space. Had it been possible to see the view, it would have appeared serene and peaceful.

The reality was that the missiles were traveling over twenty two times the speed of sound, and their intent was far from peaceful. As the warheads reentered the atmosphere, they slowed due to air resistance to a speed of around three times the speed of sound.

In spite of the incredible speed of the missiles, the flight took over twenty minutes. When they reached their targets, their peaceful flight had long been abandoned and exchanged for a fiery rage as the friction created by the air made their noses glow like candles.

The first missile detonated. Its payload pounded against the ground with prejudice, but the structures hit by the blast refused to yield. Before the first blast had formed a mushroom cloud, the second blast came. Then the third. Then the fourth. Fifth. Sixth.

Again and again, the ground was shaken by the bombs. By the time the last nuclear weapon detonated, nothing was left of the intended targets other than burning flesh and melted ice and snow.

The primary Hive cluster of the Swarm was gone. The only surviving members of the attack had escaped via Nydus Worm or Leviathan. Unbeknownst to the attackers, the escapees numbered in the tens of thousands, and only a few had been left behind.

* * *

November 20, 2017. 1:00 P.M. UTC

Local time: 7:00 P.M.

Eight minutes before the first nuclear missile impact.

A black car sat on the side of the road. Its occupant waited for the order to carry out his mission.

It was simple and fairly easy; go in, take out the targets, and leave. The targets were nobody special in any way. Lauren and Clark Flowers. The hard part would be making the incident look like a murder-suicide.

The agent got a call and received the order he had been waiting for. He got out of the car, approached the target's home, and jumped over the back yard fence. The back door would be the best entry option. People were more likely to leave their back door unlocked than their front door.

Unfortunately, the door was locked. It wouldn't be much of an issue, but it would be an annoyance. He pulled out his lock picking set and went to work.

After unlocking the deadbolt, the agent opened the door. He could hear voices talking in the next room, but he made his way to the kitchen instead. He had memorized the house's layout, and found the kitchen with no effort.

After searching through several drawers, he found a decent sized knife with a sharp point. He grabbed the knife with his gloved hand and made his way to the room where the voices were coming from. If he was going to make this look remotely real, he would need to use a weapon from the scene.

He peeked around the corner to see his targets, a man and a woman, sitting on a couch while talking to someone on speakerphone. The man was on the agent's left and the woman was on the right. Inbetween, the two held a cellphone that they were focused on.

There wasn't any concealment with which to mask his approach. Both of the targets were facing him, so he wouldn't be able to get them by surprise. He was on a tight schedule, so he did not have time to wait for a better opportunity. He would have to do things the hard way. The agent's adrenal glands and neurons began dumping adrenaline into his blood as he readied himself. The agent peeked around to see if the targets had any weapons. He saw none available to them, and thus, began to move.

He ran out of his concealment and headed straight for the man. The movement attracted both of the targets' attention. The woman screamed and leapt away and out of her seat, but the man was eerily calm and collected, and that fact disturbed the agent.

He didn't have time to fully consider the man's behavior, but he assumed the man must have been well trained in some form of martial arts, and thus was confident in his ability. As the agent ran, he could not help but to ask himself if he missed something. The agent jumped over the coffee table and the man put up one of his feet, preparing to keep the agent away.

As the agent cleared the table and nearly landed on top of the target's upheld foot, the agent heard the familiar boom of a 40 caliber handgun. He had seen both of the target's files, and there was no record of either of the two owning any firearms. The agent went to lunge at the target but his arm failed him. The target pushed the agent off of him and onto the coffee table.

The agent noticed that his right arm still didn't work correctly and that there was blood spattered on the target's face in spite of the fact that he had missed his target. The agent realized two things he had missed. The target was both armed and was left handed. The target fired again, and the agent instinctively began counting to keep up with when the target would need to reload, but the agent quickly lost count as his mind faded into an eternal unconsciousness.

Clark took a deep breath as Lauren stopped screaming.

"What was that?" The voice on the phone asked.

"Someone just tried to stab me." Clark said.

"Where are you?"

"1732 West Latimer Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma." Clark answered.

Lauren spoke up. "Oh my gosh! Are you okay?!"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"There's blood all over you! You're not fine!"

"Honey, it isn't my blood."

"Don't go anywhere and don't call the police." The voice on the phone said. "I'm sending some...you will be picked up. Someone wants you dead, and the government can't protect you. We will be at your door in about five minutes. I have to go, but don't freak out when we get there."

* * *

November 20, 2017. 12:57 A.M. UTC.

Local time: 7:57 P.M.

Location: Scranton Pennsylvania.

"My queen," Matilda called psyionically, interrupting May's conversation with her parents, "Overseers have detected multiple ballistic missile launches."

"Hold on just a moment." May told her parents. Her dad had arrived from his work not long after she called, and she was speaking to both of them on speakerphone.

"Where are they headed?" May asked Matilda.

"Their trajectory has been mostly upwards since their launch. Any lateral movement could be due to the high winds in the upper atmosphere."

"How many are there?" May asked.

"There are twelve so far. No missiles have been launched for nearly a minute. It appears as though there will be no more."

May thought for a moment and quickly decided to assume the worst. "Evacuate Broodland. If they are hitting us, I want the damage to be minimal. I want half of our ground forces in the Leviathan if possible and all of our air. The rest, send to the Nydus Network. If they are hitting us, then we will still be able to protect Israel while we rebuild."

"Yes, my queen." Matilda replied.

"Send Drones out in Overlords to secluded locations around the world. I want five Drones per Overlord. Send all of them, but leave two hundred on the Leviathan for later. Have one Drone per group morph into a Hatchery, and one per group morph into an Extractor.

"How has our underwater...research been going?" May asked.

"We have developed underwater strains of Hatcheries, Extractors, Drones, and Hydralisks. Our Hydralisk Dens, however, have rejected the modifications and cannot remain viable underwater."

"Do we have any underwater strain Hydralisks right now?"

"We do."

"Then send a dozen of the Drone filled Overlords to areas where the ocean is deep, and have each one escorted by the water strain of Hydralisks. And give them a new name. We need an easier distinction between them and normal Hydralisks."

"Yes, my queen."

"And send a few Hydras to the missile launch location to find out who is doing this. Let me know when you find the sub."

May returned to her conversation with her parents.

"I'm sorry about that. Something came up."

"Is everything alright?" Lauren asked.

"Probably not."

"What do you mean by that?" Clark asked.

"We have a possible situation in the making. Our forces are being eva-"

May was interrupted by screaming over the phone followed by several bangs.

"What was that?" She asked.

"Someone just tried to stab me." Clark said.

"Where are you?"

"1732 West Latimer Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma." Clark answered.

Lauren spoke up. "Oh my gosh! Are you okay?!"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"There's blood all over you! You're not fine!"

"Honey, it isn't my blood."

"Don't go anywhere and don't call the police." May said. "I'm sending some...you will be picked up. Someone wants you dead, and the government can't protect you. We will be at your door in about five minutes. I have to go, but don't freak out when we get there."

May hung up.

First a missile launched, now her parents were attacked. Things weren't looking good for her own chances of being attacked, or rather, they were looking too good. May ordered her Leviathan to prepare to jump to her location. Subtlety was out of the window if she was being nuked.

May then turned her attention to the Overseer watching the car John had entered. It was still sitting there, and neither John nor Timothy had made a move to get out.

They couldn't bomb her, not in the middle of a city, and there were no windows from which someone could shoot at her. May figured that they must have wanted to contain her. Although she knew that they would not be able to keep her locked up due to her psionic abilities, she worried that they would be able to slow her down.

With this in mind, May opened the warehouse door she came in through. She slipped out, taking the phone with her, and took off toward the car John and Timothy were in, flying low to the ground to avoid being spotted. She took a circular route around the car that let her approach the car from behind. Landing softly just around the corner of a nearby building so that she could look around at the back of the car without being easily spotted, May watched the two intently. They appeared to be talking.

Matilda sent her an update on the location of the missiles. They headed for Broodland. There was nothing she could do, so May simply waited. For a couple of minutes she waited and prepared herself mentally. The missiles were seconds away from impact.

As each missile struck, May felt the nuclear bombs' power through her psionic connection to the Hives, Lairs, and Hatcheries. After the third missile detonated, an explosion shook her physical body. She snapped out of her connection to the Zerg and saw a building a couple of blocks in front of John's car collapsing into its own footprint. The building she was just in.

As the implications of this sunk in, the sound of the settling rubble died down. John and Timothy's car started and began to drive away. May, wanting to know how deeply they were involved in all of this, gently lifted their car off of the pavement and firmly held the doors shut.

May broke from her cover and walked up to the passenger side with the window held at eye level. Timothy pulled out a handgun and leveled it at her face before squeezing the trigger.

Though the crack of gunfire echoed through the night, it was largely muffled by the fact that the bullet never made it to the window, but instead, stopped just inches away from the barrel and dropped harmlessly into John's lap. Without a word, May psionically ripped the gun from Timothy's grasp and through the passenger side window, shattering the glass.

"You're coming with me." May hissed before taking off into the night sky.

The car followed closely behind, carried in May's psionic grasp. As May flew, much of the sky began to glow an eerie orange. The glow gradually intensified before flashing brightly and fading away. Moments later, a boom ripped through the skies, busting windows for miles. At over ten kilometers long, the Zerg Leviathan was large enough to cover almost the entire city it was now hovering over.

May flew straight toward the massive flying creature while ordering an orifice near her to open. Several lights were beginning to shine upwards through the night sky and on the bottom of the massive creature.

May ignored the lights and eventually made it to the Leviathan. After flying through the orifice, car in tow, May silently ordered the Leviathan to jump to Tulsa Oklahoma.

* * *

"Does that mean she's sending Zerg?" Lauren asked.

"I don't know, but we need to be careful if what she said is true." Clark stated.

"I'm calling the police." Lauren said as she reached for her phone.

"That might make things worse." Clark stated. "We don't want to draw attention to ourselves. In fact, we should probably turn off all of the inside lights and turn on all of the outside ones so that nobody can see in."

Lauren processed Clark's reasoning for a moment. "I'll get upstairs."

Within a minute, the inside of the house was completely dark and Lauren was double checking that everything was off. Lauren walked back into the living room to find Clark hunched over the body on the coffee table.

"What are you doing?!" She hissed.

"Seeing what he had on him. The car across the street was his, but I can't find anything on him except for his keys." Clark said as he rifles through the dead man's belongings.

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of loud banging on the front door.

"Police department. Search warrant. Police department. Search warrant."

Not a second later, the front door was busted open and a bang proceeded shortly thereafter that made their ears ring. Before Lauren and Clark knew what was happening, the room was filled with smoke and men with rifle mounted flashlights.

"Hands on your head! Hands on your head!" Several of them yelled repeatedly. Lauren and Clark immediately complied.

Two of the men came up behind the couple, where the men had come from, they did not know, and began cuffing them. Clark's pistol was removed from its holster and the two were quickly escorted outside as the rest of the house was searched.

Once outside, they were made to sit down on the street curb among several police cars and an armored S.W.A.T. car. Before the married couple were given time to ask what the heck was going on, the attention of everyone present was diverted upwards by an orange glow that filled the entire night sky and lit up everything with an eerie orange light.

The sky flashed bright orange for a moment before being replaced with utter darkness. No stars, no moon. Just darkness.

Lights were soon pointed upwards to reveal that the darkness was not simply clouds, but rather a dark textured surface that covered the entire night sky. A soft whistle began to echo through the streets that slowly grew in intensity. Suddenly, the whistle was replaced by a earth shaking thud, followed by dirt raining down on everything in the area.

Lauren and Clark had been covering their eyes, but when the dirt stopped falling, they looked behind them to see a dozen S.W.A.T. officers pointing their guns at a massive new hole in the front yard.

"Put down your weapons." A voice commanded from within the hole.

The officers all looked toward an older officer who was also looking into the hole. The older officer spoke up.

"What are you? Zerg?" He asked.

"I am, and I am here to retrieve those two people you have handcuffed on the curb." The voice said from within the hole.

The officer glanced over to the two suspects in custody. "I'm afraid I can't do that. They are to be processed and detained."

The officers around the hole began backing up as something stirred within. As the officer in charge backed up, a dragon emerged from the hole and towered over the officer.

"I did not ask your permission. I told you what I am going to do." The dragon said once out of the hole.

"You aren't leaving here with those suspects." The officer stated, his rifle trained on the dragon.

The dragon turned to Clark and Lauren. "Where's the body?" It asked.

"I-it's on the coffee table in the front room." Clark said nervously but loud enough for his voice to carry.

"Did he have anything on him?"

"Just his keys."

"Where are they?"

"In my pocket." Clark replied.

Clark and Lauren's handcuffs clicked and became lose on their wrists.

"Find his car and get in." The dragon said before walking off towards the front door. Clark and Lauren watched in confusion as none of the officers moved an inch in spite of the dragon having walked out of their line of fire. Clark snapped out of his stupor, got up, and helped Lauren do the same.

Clark fished out the stolen keys and pressed the lock button on the key fob, causing a car a couple of houses down to honk. As the couple made their way to the car, they noticed that several of their neighbors were watching from their windows or front doors.

Clark and Lauren got into the black car, Clark on the driver side and Lauren on the passenger side. Clark started the car and drove it into his driveway before rolling down the window.

The dragon walked up to the car and held out an open paw next to the open window. Clark looked down at the paw in confusion before noticing that it held his Glock that the police had taken away from him. Clark thanked the dragon, took the pistol, and holstered it.

"I'm going to take you up to the Leviathan where you will be safe until I can find a place for you." The dragon said. "I'm going to need you two to stay calm and stay put while I pick up the car."

Lauren's eyes went wide. "Wait, what?"

Before they knew it, the car was being lifted into the air somehow. Lauren and Clark held tight to anything that seemed solid and Lauren let out a yelp of surprise.

The dragon took off in front of the car with the dead body in its claws, and the car followed behind with a slightly terrified Clark and Lauren inside. The flight was a strange one, to say the least, but it was mercifully short. Before they knew it, the car was resting back on solid-ish ground inside of the Leviathan.

The two quickly noticed that there was another car parked next to the one they were currently in, and that the whole place felt wrong in some strange way. After getting out of the car, the couple noticed that the room they were in was not lit by normal lights, but was instead lit by a glowing substance that ran along the walls, ceiling, and floor.

"Welcome to the Leviathan." The dragon said, gaining their attention. "Just a few minutes ago, the main Zerg Hive cluster was destroyed by nuclear weapons, I was nearly buried underneath a building, and you two were nearly assassinated. We just found the submarine that launched the nukes, and that is where we are headed. I'm sorry that things are the way they are, but it cannot be helped at this point. You are free to go wherever you wish, and if you get lost, just call out for help and it will come. I have to go, but I will hopefully return within an hour or two."

At that, the dragon began walking off.

"Oh." the dragon said. "We are about to jump, and you will probably be more comfortable buckled in the car when that happens."

As the dragon disappeared, Lauren and Clark got back into the car and buckled in. The two sat in silence for several moments.

"What do you-" Lauren began, but was cut off suddenly by the feeling of extreme weight that lasted for less than a second, followed by weightlessness. For several seconds, the Lauren, Clark, and the car were completely weightless, and the car even began to lift off of the ground. The feeling of extreme weight returned for a split second, and the car was violently dragged back to the ground with a thud.

As suddenly as the experience came, it was gone, and Lauren and Clark were left trying to recover from the shock of the abnormal physics of the "jump."

* * *

May picked herself off of the fleshy floor of her Leviathan. She had figured that the jump would be somewhat rough, but she had not expected to be tossed up into the air and violently thrown back down to the ground. She mentally thanked herself for telling her parents to buckle into the car before the jump.

May reached into the Swarm's collective mind and searched below her. What she found was two things. One, Matilda was able to come up with new names very quickly. Two, Matilda did not fully understand the concept of verbal communication. Matilda had renamed the water strain Hydralisks, but the new name, though creative, was so similar to the old one that they were nearly exactly the same. May was not sure that she would be able to tell the two apart in verbal communication.

May just sighed and decided to address the naming issue later, for below her, hundreds of underwater Hydrolisks swarmed around a large submarine. Through their senses, she could "see" the submarine responsible for the destruction of her Hive cluster. The Hydrolisks were mostly blind, so she could not literally see the submarine. They did, however, have a sonar of sorts that Matilda had found during her search for undersea essence.

Psionically, May reached out and grasped the underwater machine of destruction. Gently, she tugged the submarine upwards. The sub was far beneath the ocean surface, and May sat still for several minutes as she dragged the thing closer to the surface. Upon reaching the surface, May felt the submarine become significantly more difficult to lift.

While keeping the submarine on the surface, May ordered her Leviathan down to the ocean surface. The massive creature slowly reached the water, but it did not stop when it touched the waves. Instead, it kept going down until it was halfway submerged next to the submarine.

A massive orifice opened on the side of the Leviathan, and May psionically pushed the submarine through the entrance. Once the submarine was inside, the Leviathan sunk a bit more to fill the orifice completely with water. Once the orifice was filled, it closed, trapping the submarine inside.

She had a submarine, two prisoners, her parents, and no Hive. Now what?

May began to think over her priorities. Her first priority had been to make the Zerg into a nation.

No.

Making a Zerg nation had been a means of preserving the Zerg. Now that they were under attack, avoiding further attack was her main priority. With the Leviathan, that would not be a problem.

If her first priority had been to preserve the Swarm, then her second priority would be to grow the Swarm. With hidden Hatcheries being scattered over the planet, that had already been somewhat taken care of.

Third priority. Protect Israel. No. That had been part of her becoming a nation. Was that still a priority? Israel faced a similar problem she did, and she had considered them her allies. They could not run away like she could. They could not simply jump to another system in a-

May's eyes shot open, and she immediately ordered the Leviathan to jump to Jerusalem. Hopefully she could get an audience with the Prime Minister or the Knesset. Anyone who could make a decision would do.

As the Leviathan began to jump, May realized that she had not told her parents about the jump. The people in the submarine were even less prepared.

"Oops." May whispered just before the Leviathan vanished from its place in the ocean.

* * *

 **So, sorry about the wait. I had actually intended for this chapter to be about 2-3 times longer, but I realized that that would have made the time between chapters just incredibly, stupidly long. I hope you guys enjoyed it though. School, and procrastinating doing school, has been making it difficult to find time to write. I want to say that I can get the next chapter out in less time than this one, but...no promises. :(**

 **Oh, and we broke 100 comments...er, reviews. Thanks!**


	23. Chapter 23

**1 year 5 months 7 days since the last update. Yet another year or more may pass before I am able to write as I once was. Until then, I present this to you. Thank you for your patience.**

* * *

November 20, 2017. 1:08 P.M. UTC.

Local time: November 21, 2017. 4:08 A.M.

Location: Above Jerusalem.

May landed on the organic floor of her Leviathan with an ungraceful thud. She silently hoped that the other people aboard her Leviathan were uninjured by the jump. Given that a submarine was a mass of metal with little room for comfort, she doubted it. Hopefully, nobody was going up or down a flight of stairs when it happened.

Shoving her worries aside, May returned her thoughts to the matters at hand and mentally contacted Matilda.

"How are our forces divided? What have we got and where have we got it?" May asked.

"We have five thousand six hundred fliers aboard the Leviathan, most of which are Scourges and Mutalisks, and sixteen thousand ground forces, most of which are Zerglings, Roaches, and Hydralisks. Our two forward Hatcheries in Iraq and their defences are the only remaining structures we have. There is not even a Spawning Pool left."

Growth. If there was one thing that the Swarm desired, that was it. May had never felt as if the Zerg was influencing her actions, but she could very much feel what they felt. Now they were all but crippled, and the Zerg were...uneasy. With the old Zerg Hive cluster gone, replaced by radioactive ice and snow, and the rest of the land in the world claimed by other countries, the only way for the Swarm to grow on this world now was to conquer. A conquest that would undoubtedly end in the same way Broodland had: in fire and death.

On the bright side of all of this, May had always kicked herself about the name Broodland. Perhaps she could come up with a better name for whatever she named next. Matilda would certainly not be naming anything else after having come up with Hydrolisk.

May's viable options for keeping the Zerg strong were few, but from what she had, the Zerg would come out alive if nothing went terribly wrong; Israel would be infinitely more affected in the long run than the Zerg. The Zerg could rebuild quickly, and the lives of the individual only mattered as much as they were worth to the whole. Israel was filled with individuals whose worth to their country was very different from their worth to their families.

"Matilda, contact Amos. Inform him of the situation and see if he can get me an audience with the Knesset or the Prime Minister. In the meantime, take back the rest of Israel through whatever means are necessary. Nothing gets in via land without a Zerg escort. I will work out the details with whoever Amos gets me in touch with."

"Yes, my queen." Matilda said before her mental presence faded.

With that taken care of for now, May turned her thoughts to her prisoners and her parents. John and Timothy were the last people she wanted to talk to, even if they could give her some insight into the why, how, and who behind the nukes. She doubted that the submarine crew knew more about the situation than she did herself, and she was not entirely sure how she would go about getting into the submarine at all.

As much as she wanted to see her parents, May figured that they would be asking about the more human version of herself sooner rather than later, and the excuse that she was in Broodland no longer held any weight. Eventually they would figure out that something was not right. Most of the Swarm was aboard the Leviathan, and the Israelis would know nothing about a random American named May Flowers.

May then realized how problematic her relations would become if she told the Israelis that she had been housing a human for six months. Her parents would probably assume that she was being housed by the Israelis because living among the Zerg was hardly a comfortable option.

Eventually May would either have to tell her parents that she was leading an entire army against several nations at once, or change back into her human self to show them that she was actually alive...and probably be forced to explain to the Israelis why a human girl had been secretly living with the Zerg for six months. Her only other option would be to hope that she could maintain a complex web of lies and secrets between herself, her parents, and the Israelis which, if caught, could cause her relations with Israel and her parents to suffer. No easy way out it would seem.

It boiled down to creating political problems, personal problems, or risk both for the sake of buying time to decide later. She considered what she would do from a purely Zerg perspective. Advance the Swarm? Maintain allies until they were no longer useful? Act before some unknown timer expires?

Time was one thing that May could not know. Time until America would attack again. Time until the I.S.I.S. Nations decided to attack again, not they they would be a problem for much longer. Time until the people in the submarine starved to death or died some other horrible death from being locked inside of a metal can that was stuck inside a giant floating Zerg creature.

With that thought, May postponed her decision and decided to see if she could find a way of contacting the people inside of the massive metal war machine she had on board. Dead prisoners of war would not be helpful. With a thought from May, a door of flesh and bone opened into a large passageway meant for Roaches, Hydralisks, Drones, and other moderately sized Zerg.

May began making her way down to the "room" near the exterior of the Leviathan that housed the submarine and enough water to fill the space occupied by the submarine five times over. As she walked, May ordered air to be pumped into the housing via an internal Nydus Worm. The housing expanded to accept the extra volume, and enough air was added to allow the submarine to surface if it chose to do so. Given that May was not about to leave the decision to surface to the people aboard the ship, May ordered the Nydus Worm to begin pumping water out of the housing and out into the ocean below. Once enough water was gone to reveal the deck clearly, May made her way to an entrance to the oversized biological fish tank.

Upon entering, she was surprised at how small she felt. Although she had felt the space inside of the housing through the psionic connection to it, actually seeing the size of the submarine and the housing made her feel somewhat small. Although the Leviathan was truly massive in size, she understood it on an intimate and genetic level, so it was not quite as awe inspiring as it probably was to anyone else who saw it. The submarine, on the other hand, she did not understand. She knew a little bit about submarines and ships in general, and the mechanics behind pretty much all of the systems that the machine used were beyond her understanding.

The massive vessel was about halfway submerged in the remaining water, and the bottom of it rested on the bottom of the chamber. The chamber ceiling was several times taller than the submarine was, but that did not take away from the imposing presence that the metal beast of war had. At around fifteen to twenty yards tall, the body of the submarine was easily four times taller than she was. May tried to guess its length, but could only figure that it was probably not longer than two American football fields.

After admiring the massive submarine for nearly a minute, May leaped into the air and gently landed on the top of the submarine. After some searching, she found a hatch near the base of the large tower positioned on the front half of the ship. Unsure of what else to do, May knocked on the hatch with her claw.

"Hello," she shouted, "I am here to make sure you all don't suffocate in there."

After a couple of moments of nothing happening, May decided to keep shouting in hopes that they could hear her inside of the submarine.

"I am too big to come in there, if that is what you are worried about."

Several moments of silence passed.

"I am not going to eat you guys or anything. I just want to make sure that you aren't going to die while I keep you locked up in here."

Probably not the best thing to say.

"If you change your minds and decide to come out or something, I will be keeping an eye on you. I just want to make sure that you aren't going to die or launch any more nukes or…" May sighed. She couldn't help but reprimand herself for not having the slightest idea of what to say. "Look, I have some civilians out here that I can't exactly feed, and there is no drinkable water anywhere around here, so if you could help me keep them from dying of dehydration and starvation, that would be great."

While she technically had food and water, she doubted that her charges would appreciate water and food obtained through purely organic means.

Several moments of silence later, not even the slightest sound was made.

"How about this, if I bring the people here, will you at least let them in? One knock for yes, and two knocks for no."

After several minutes of waiting, nothing happened. As May began to formulate a less than friendly means of ensuring her prisoners and guests stayed alive, a single loud clang echoed through the massive chamber.

May smiled and hastily jumped off of the submarine. A moment later, she was running through the halls of the Leviathan, making her way to the room that had held her parents. Upon entering, she found the black car with her parents inside. Once they saw her, they both began stepping out of the vehicle.

Her father eyed her warily as he closed the door.

May took a moment to catch her breath. Why had she been running anyway? It was not as if a few minutes without food and water would hurt anyone.

"Sorry." May replied. "I'm just in a hurry to get things done. I picked up the sub that nuked us, and I am taking you two there so that you don't starve to death or anything. I doubt that you will be on the Leviathan for long enough for that to become an issue, but while I'm gone I won't have any way of contacting you to make sure that you are well provided for.

"Hopefully soon I will be speaking to the Israeli government about what to do with you and my prisoners. As of right now, you are not safe in America. I have no doubt that the man you killed earlier was a part of this. If the American government wants you dead, then the best place for you is with me."

"Where is May?" Clark asked, apparently ignoring everything she had just said.

May narrowed her eyes in annoyance at him before sitting down and actually thinking through what she was going to say.

"I will not answer that question," she said slowly, "but I will tell you that she is currently being protected by an army of over twenty one thousand Zerg, this Leviathan being the largest. I don't want to put either of you in any more danger, and the best way to do that is to make sure that neither of you can be questioned on May's whereabouts. There are several nations that would rather May be dead than alive, and the fewer that know where she is, the easier it will be to keep May alive."

"So she isn't here?" Clark asked.

"She might not be here." May said evenly.

Clark took a deep breath and spoke slowly, "I want to see my daughter."

May struggled not to break her composure, looking away and pretending to think about something.

"Once we-" May stopped herself. She would have to factor her parents into her plans. She did not trust anyone else to be able to protect them.

"Alright." May sighed and considered her words. "There are two options for you. You can stay on board this Leviathan and you will be able to see you daughter sooner. You will be safe from anything that could want to do you harm, but you will have to go where this Leviathan goes. Otherwise, I can take you to Israel where there is constant war and I don't know when you would be able to see May again."

"Then we are staying." Lauren said as soon as May finished. "How long until we can see her?"

May relaxed a bit, thankful that she would not have to worry about them. "I will need to discuss some things with the Israelis, then we can leave. Until then, I think it would be more comfortable for you to stay aboard...well...I picked up a submarine. They do not know who you are, and it would be best if you kept it that way. The two of you have become very important; your daughter more so."

May considered saying more, but did not trust herself to remain stoic.

"Come with me." May said as she began walking away, the footsteps of her parents following closely behind.

"What is this thing?" Clark asked while gesturing to the walls and ceiling as they walked. "You called it a Leviathan, right?"

"It is called a Leviathan, yes. It is a living vessel that allows interstellar travel."

"Interste-" Clark muttered before being cut off.

"LIVING?!" Lauren exclaimed, "We're inside something that's alive?!"

May stopped walking and looked back at her parents. It had never crossed her mind just how weird that fact was.

"The walls are moving." Lauren announced with a faraway look in her eyes. "Honey, the walls are moving."

"It's-...There isn't-..." May tried to think of a response as her mother began whispering under her breath. "Everything the Zerg has is alive. Technology requires a form that the Zerg just don't fully comprehend."

Lauren did not seem to comprehend any of what May had said, and Clark had wrapped an arm around her in an attempt to console her.

"May isn't living in a place like this, is she?" Clark asked, briefly looking up to meet May's gaze.

"Well is she?"

May cleared her throat. "She is, but May isn't normal."

Clark flashed her an angry glare.

"I didn't mean that in a bad way. If she was normal, none of this would be here."

"I'm having a hard time," Clark said in a low voice, "not being angry with all of you...things...right now. You are the reason my daughter was kidnapped! You are the reason why I haven't heard her voice in months! You are the reason my wife and I almost died today! You are the reason someone apparently wants us dead! I would give just about everything I have just so that May COULD be normal!"

May held her breath as Clark pointedly ignored her. Lauren had stopped her muttering and begun staring at her husband instead.

Several moments of silence passed, filled only by breathing and the faint sounds of the Leviathan.

"You'll be escorted to the sub." May said between her teeth before walking away.

As she neared an opening in the tunnel, she turned to her parents. Clark met her gaze. She wanted to say something, anything at all, but she did not want them to know any of the things she wanted to say.

Instead, May continued through the opening and made her way to the front of the Leviathan. While much of the back was devoted to troop holding areas and necessary biological functions such as the hearts, food storage, the central nervous system, etc… the front was devoted to the primary brain and psionic core of the Leviathan as well as the central control room.

Upon arrival in the mostly empty space, May called out to Matilda.

"Yes, my queen?"

May almost did not even notice the title. She wondered if Matilda had been using it still and she simply had stopped noticing.

"Change of plans. Tell the Israelis that we will drop off our remaining forces, and cancel our meeting with the Prime Minister or the Knesset if that ever became a thing."

May waited for a response from Matilda, but none came.

"As soon as I arrive, I will need you to evolve into a Broodmother on board the Leviathan. I will stay behind once you finish and get to the bottom of what is going on with America, and you will leave with the Leviathan."

"What of the submarine?"

"We are going to keep the sub but not the soldiers. I will drop them off with our forces and they can become Israel's problem. Maybe I can get some Zerg to learn a thing or two about technology some day."

"Is there anything else?"

"No, I just need to think for a while."

"My queen, the Israelis do not like that we have taken over their war entirely, and they grow weary of our presence."

"If they want us gone, then they should ask."

"Is that what I should tell them?"

"Tell them that our survival is certain and that it is theirs that we are concerned about."

May sat in silence as the conversation ended about as abruptly as it had begun. In the resulting silence, she began to think about everything that had happened. Questions formed in her mind, but remained unanswered. Should she have come back to America? Should she have gotten involved with Israel? Was her dream of a Zerg nation just the silly imaginings of a little girl with no understanding of the world?

Most prominently, she wondered what mistakes had brought her to this point and whether or not she would be forced to pay for her mistakes any more than she already had. Had she become too confident in the Zerg?

Hours of asking questions did little for her, so she decided to work on preparing herself for her… "plan" to get to the bottom of things in America. Should she even try? She shook that thought from her head. She had to know why she was attacked, otherwise it would certainly happen again.

She decided to address one problem at a time, and figuring out how she would uncover why her Hive Cluster was attacked was at the top of her mental list.

* * *

 **A stone is heavy, and sand is a burden, but the anger of a fool is heavier than them both.**


End file.
